10Meters News Service

Oct. 8, 2001 The Federal Communications Commission has approved a request by several of the nation's largest phone companies to extend their deadline for implementing technology that pinpoints the location of cell phone users calling 911.

The agency on Friday gave five nationwide carriers – Nextel, Sprint, Verizon and the GSM portions of AT&T Wireless and Cingular's networks – conditional approval of E-911 deadline extensions.

The E-911 tracking system works by analyzing signals sent between mobile handsets and global positioning satellites or transmission towers. Deadline for carriers to begin offering improved location identification, and selling phones with the technology, was October 1. The FCC has ordered all U.S. carriers to launch complete E-911 location services by Dec. 31, 2005.

FCC chairman Michael Powell expressed "disappointment," at the carriers' progress. "Carriers have made concerted strides in this area, but those efforts must be redoubled,'' Powell said in a statement. "There is a new sense of urgency around using mobile phones as important safety devices."

Many wireless technology experts have speculated that E-911 location technology could be a life saver in disastrous situations such as the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.