Credit: TR Daily

TruePosition, Inc.’s commercially available technology can meet the FCC’s near-term proposals for wireless carriers to be able to locate 911 callers horizontally and vertically indoors, according to a report on testing commissioned by the company.

In a third further notice of proposed rulemaking adopted in February (TRDaily, Feb. 20), the Commission proposed to require wireless carriers to locate 911 callers horizontally indoors within 50 meters for 67% of calls within two years of the rules being adopted and for 80% of calls within five years. Carriers would have to vertically locate callers within three meters, or approximately floor-level location, for 67% of calls within three years and for 80% of calls within five years. Carriers would have to meet these standards at the county or public safety answering point (PSAP) level.

Testing conducted last month in the Wilmington, Del., area showed that the performance of TruePosition’s uplink time difference of arrival (UTDOA) and hybrid UTDOA and assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS) technology offerings meet “the FCC’s proposed location performance threshold for indoor wireless E911 at the 67th percentile. The demonstrated performance even comes very close to meeting the 50 meter threshold at 80%, which is intended for 5 years from adoption of the proposed rules,” according to the report by TechnoCom.

“These results should prove helpful to the FCC as it moves toward reaching a resolution on its proposed rule on indoor location requirements,” said Craig Waggy, chief executive officer of TruePosition. “We know that accurate location information is vitally important to American consumers, and that the FCC is intent on remedying the lack of wireless indoor location requirements for calls placed to 9-1-1 from wireless devices.”

The tests were similar to those that TechnoCom conducted in February and March 2013 for TruePosition, although the most recent tests were “broader in scope, including more buildings and test points, and tested the latest, improved technology from TruePosition.”

“The improvement in location accuracy observed in the current testing compared to the March 2013 test results is quite evident for both UTDOA and Hybrid AGPS/UTDOA,” the report said. “Reductions in the 67th and 90th percentile location errors approximately in the 40 to 60 percent range are obtained under very similar morphology and test point conditions.”- Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com