Facilitating Implementation of Next Generation 911 Services (NG911); Location-Based Routing for Wireless 911 Calls

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 9</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PS Docket Nos. 21-479, 18-64; FCC 24-78; FR ID 238221]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Facilitating Implementation of Next Generation 911 Services (NG911); Location-Based Routing for Wireless 911 Calls</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC or Commission) adopted a Report and Order to advance the nationwide Next Generation 911 (NG911) transition rules that define the responsibilities and set deadlines for originating service providers (OSPs) to implement NG911 capabilities on their networks and deliver 911 calls to NG911 systems established by 911 authorities. In addition, the rules preserve the authority of state, territorial, regional, Tribal, and local government to adopt alternative approaches to the configuration, timing, and cost responsibility for NG911 implementation within their jurisdictions. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> November 25, 2024. <E T="03">Compliance date:</E> Compliance will not be required for §§ 9.31(a) through (c) and 9.34(a) and (b) until a document is published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing a compliance date and revising or removing §§ 9.31(d) and 9.34(c). </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact John Evanoff of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, Policy and Licensing Division, at <E T="03">John.Evanoff@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-0848. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order in PS Docket Nos. 21-479 and 18-64, FCC 24-78, adopted on July 18, 2024, released on July 19, 2024, and corrected via an Erratum released on September 5, 2024. The full text of this document is available for public inspection at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-78A1.pdf.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is major under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the Report and Order to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> This document is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order (Order). In the Order, we take steps that will advance the nationwide transition to Next Generation 911 (NG911). Like communications networks generally, dedicated 911 networks are evolving from Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)-based circuit-switched architectures to internet Protocol (IP)-based architectures. With the transition to NG911, legacy 911 networks will be replaced by IP-based technologies and applications, which provide new capabilities and improved interoperability and system resilience. Most states have begun to invest significantly in NG911, but some have experienced delays in communications providers connecting to these IP-based networks. As a result of these delays, state and local 911 authorities incur prolonged costs because of the need to maintain both legacy and IP networks during the transition. Managing 911 traffic on both legacy and IP networks at the same time may also result in increased vulnerability and risk of 911 outages. To facilitate the NG911 transition, we adopt rules that will require wireline providers, Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) providers, covered text providers, providers of interconnected Voice over internet Protocol (VoIP) services, and providers of internet-based Telecommunications Relay Service (internet-based TRS) (collectively “originating service providers” or “OSPs”)  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> to take actions to start or continue the transition to NG911 in coordination with 911 Authorities. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The rules create a consistent NG911 transition framework at the national level, while also affording flexibility to 911 Authorities to modify the transition framework at the State, regional, local, territorial, or Tribal level. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  For purposes of this document and the Order and the rules we adopt, “wireline provider” means “[a] local exchange carrier (as defined in 47 U.S.C. 153(32)) that provides service using wire communication (as defined in 47 U.S.C. 153(59)),” and “covered text provider” has the meaning given such term under 47 CFR 9.10(q)(1). The terms “CMRS,” “interconnected VoIP service,” and “internet-based TRS” have the meanings identified in 47 CFR 9.3. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  “911 Authority” means “[a] state, territorial, regional, Tribal, or local governmental entity that operates or has administrative authority over all or any aspect of a communications network for the receipt of 911 traffic at NG911 Delivery Points and for the transmission of such traffic from that point to PSAPs.” </FTNT> We implement a two-phased approach to guide the transition to NG911. Each phase is initiated by a 911 Authority submitting a valid request to OSPs within the jurisdiction where the 911 Authority is located for the OSPs to comply with NG911 requirements, including: • <E T="03">Phase 1:</E> Upon receiving a valid Phase 1 request from a 911 Authority, an OSP must commence delivery of 911 traffic in IP-based Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) format to one or more in-state NG911 Delivery Points designated by the 911 Authority. Phase 1 will enable 911 Authorities to deploy Emergency Services IP Networks (ESInets) in a cost-effective manner by selecting convenient delivery points to receive 911 traffic; will improve 911 reliability by using an IP-based format, rather than legacy format, to deliver 911 traffic; and will establish the transmission platforms necessary for upgrading to Phase 2. • <E T="03">Phase 2:</E> Upon receiving a valid Phase 2 request from a 911 Authority, an OSP must commence delivery of 911 traffic to the designated in-state NG911 Delivery Point(s) in an IP-based SIP format that complies with NG911 commonly accepted standards identified by the 911 Authority, including having location information embedded in the call signaling using Presence Information Data Format—Location Object (PIDF-LO)  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> or the functional equivalent. In Phase 2, the OSP must install and put into operation all equipment, software applications, and other infrastructure, or acquire all services, necessary to use a Location Information Server (LIS) or its functional equivalent for the verification of its customer location information and records. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Phase 2 will facilitate use of the functional elements of Next Generation 911 Core Services (NGCS), which can deliver dynamic information to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), enabling them to use policy routing functions to dynamically reroute 911 traffic to avoid network disruptions, thus reducing the impact of outages on 911 continuity. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Dynamic Extensions to the Presence Information Data Format Location Object (PIDF-LO) (Sept. 2010), <E T="03">https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5962</E> (RFC 5962), and A Presence-based GEOPRIV Location Object Format (Dec. 2005), <E T="03">https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4119</E> (RFC 4119). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  “Location Information Server (LIS)” means “[a] Functional Element that provides locations of endpoints. A LIS can provide Location-by-Reference or Location-by-Value, and, if the latter, in geodetic or civic forms. A LIS can be queried by an endpoint for its own location, or by another entity for the location of an endpoint.” </FTNT> For both Phase 1 and Phase 2, 911 Authorities must meet specific readiness criteria in order to make a valid request for OSP delivery of NG911 traffic. For Phase 1, the 911 Authority must certify that it has all the necessary infrastructure installed and operational to receive 911 traffic in SIP format and to transmit such traffic to the PSAPs connected to it. The 911 Authority must also identify the NG911 Delivery Points that it has designated and notify the OSP(s) of these delivery points via a registry or direct written notification. For Phase 2, the 911 Authority must certify: (1) that it has all of the necessary infrastructure installed and operational to receive 911 traffic in SIP format that complies with NG911 commonly accepted standards and to transmit such traffic to the PSAPs connected to it; and (2) that its ESInet is connected to a fully functioning NGCS network that can provide access to a Location Validation Function (LVF) and interface with the LIS or functional equivalent provided by the OSP. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  In the NG911 environment, a LVF works with the LIS to validate the location of a civic address prior to a call being placed to 911. <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> NENA: The 9-1-1 Association (NENA), The Next Generation 9-1-1 Guide for 9-1-1 Authorities at 38 (Apr. 21, 2020) <E T="03">https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nena.org/resource/resmgr/standards/nena-ref-005.1-2020_ng911_gu.pdf</E> ( <E T="03">NENA NG911 Guide for 911 Authorities</E> ). The functionality of the LVF within NG911 replaces the E911 master street address guide (MSAG) validati ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 580k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━