FCC fines Sprint Nextel, Alltel, US Cellular for failing to meet E911 requirements in 2005
By Will Park on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 1:48 PM PST In Alltel, Announcements, FCC, Sprint
We live in a world where security and safety are at the top of everyone’s list. With all the technology that we have at our displosal, we shouldn’t have to settle for partial safety – at least that’s what the FCC believes. Kevin Martin, FCC Chairman, announced that three wireless carriers in the US will be fined for failing to meet a 95% coverage requirement for E911 service no December 31, 2005.
E911 is the “enhanced” 911 system that allows emergency responders to get a location fix on a person’s mobile phone, for the purpose of finding them in situations where they can’t relay, or don’t know, their exact position. The FCC required all US wireless carrier to comply with a minimum E911 network coverage of 95% by the end of 2005, and Sprint (NYSE: S), Nextel (they were separate entities at the time), Alltel, and US Cellular all failed to meet those requirements.
Says Martin, “Alltel, Sprint Nextel, and U.S. Cellular failed to meet this critical deadline by a significant margin, despite the clear requirements of the Commission and the needs of their consumers.”
Both US Cellular and Alltel have since met the 95% minimum coverage requirement, but Sprint Nextel still has 15 million subscribers not covered by E911. Sprint Nextel will be fined $1.3 million, Alltel has to pay $1 million, and US Cellular was penalized for $500,000. All companies can appeal the fines.
Sprint Nextel is still behind in their E911 infrastructure?! What are they thinking? Maybe they thought they could risk public safety by distracting everyone with their upcoming 4G WiMAX rollout.
[Via: InfoWorld]
I would be surprised if Sprint has a strong future due to some basic business practices of theirs. Like many of the other huge wireless corporations, Sprint insists on locking people into long contracts. If Sprint was confident in their offerings they wouldn’t try to lock people into staying with them.
My company is in Austin, TX and Sprint insisted that they have excellent coverage and could provide us the GPS tracking that we needed. We got over a dozen phones and two high-speed data cards. Since we started service, we have had terrible coverage, text messages take up to 12 hours to reach the recipients, and the high-speed data cards have never worked. The GPS tracking was a joke and NOT what they showed to us.
We have talked to the sales people, tech support, corporate, and have never gotten a response. Recently they have raised the text messaging rates even though we were under contract.
What is the purpose of a contract if the company can change the rates but won’t let the consumer out of the contract?
People are starting to wise up about Sprints deceptive practices and how cellphone contracts do not benefit the consumer, only the vendor. All they do is lock you into service that doesn’t work.
Adam Brown
Longhorn Services – longhorn-services.com