As the Federal Communications Commission’s Dec. 31 deadline for implementation of E-911 capability by wireless carriers looms, Sprint Nextel is petitioning the FCC for an extra two years to meet the mandate. Polaris Wireless is one of the vendors providing technology to equip network operators to meet the mandate, while also offering innovative location-based services. Telephony’s Dan O’Shea recently spoke with Manlio Allegra, president and CEO of Polaris Wireless, about the mandate and the future market prospects for location-based service.

On the FCC’s Dec. 31 mandate: The mandate is for the network operators to achieve penetration of 95% of handsets with E-911 technology by Dec. 31. There have been delays in the past, and not much was happening, but 2005’s progress is a lot different than 2002, when nothing much was happening. All the Tier 1 operators have deployed the technology to a large extent, and I can tell you that they are taking this very seriously. Most likely, a lot of carriers won’t achieve the FCC mandate this year, but they will do so over time. Still, carriers can’t force the market penetration of handsets. They can’t force users to change handsets. There are also other issues. The 911 PSAPs have to be technologically ready, and in some states around the country, funds that had been intended for PSAP upgrades have been diverted to other areas.

On the market for location-based services: This market has been slow to develop, but it has gotten busy in the last two years. Location-based services was supposed to be a multi-million market a long time ago. A lot of people were acting in 1999 like it was already supposed to be this big business. What kind of dope were they smoking? There was no location technology deployed then, so it couldn’t be much of a market at that point. These things always take longer than we like. In Europe, the mobile carriers do not have a public safety mandate to deploy the technology, so they have need other good, revenue-driven reasons to deploy. Still, the technology has matured, and carriers are serious about it now, and seeing the potential for revenue from these services. The most important thing is it has to be marketed by carriers. You have services like a Friend Finder, things that people are going to want to use. The device interface also has to be right--functional and easy find.

On GPS vs. other location technology: We have a software-based solution, so we are not asking network operators to spend a lot more money on hardware. Our solution works well where GPS doesn’t. Our technology likes lots of base stations and lots of buildings, and it works well in that kind of urban environment. GPS works better in a rural environment.