• Deregulation
• 1,000 Line Access Charge
• N-1-1 Numbers

Deregulation

One of the first major moves in Alabama concerning 9-1-1 was the petition filed with the public service commission to deregulate 9-1-1 PSAP equipment.

The petition, filed by SRX April 30, 1990 sought removal of the tariff restrictions prohibiting emergency agencies from acquiring 9-1-1 PSAP equipment from providers other than Bellsouth and other operating telephone companies.

The opinions concerning the request were divided, as evidenced by the comments made during the hearings. Jim McCamy of Jackson County supported the deregulation while George Mangum of Florence opposed it.

Mangum stated he did not want to see Alabama become a dumping ground for equipment that has to be purchased based on the lowest bid.

McCamy said he favored deregulation to give communications districts the opportunity to procure the type of equipment that is most applicable to their situation.

Others supporting deregulation were Motorola and Huntsville based T-C-I. Phillip Hughey, a district service manager for Motorola said he believes competition spurs creativity in research and development to bring new and improved products to the marketplace at a lower cost to the customer.

John Richeson of T-C-I noted that his company employed between 30 and 40 people at its Huntsville facility making systems to meet the needs of medium sized and smaller markets. He noted the T-C-I system utilizes an on-site system, which is not subject to network failure.

South Central Bell Manager Richard Merriman testified his company felt their system had many advantages and opposed the deregulation effort. Merriman said South Central Bell provides the equipment and the telephone service on an "end-to-end basis", allowing it to be the one point of contact and the one responsible for both the equipment and telephone line. He pointed out if the equipment were deregulated, it would be possible that the customer would have to deal with more companies.

The PSC voted, "We find, that the public interest will be served better by the detariffing of 9-1-1 equipment." The commissioners reasoned the equipment should be detariffed so the customers would have the option of selecting their equipment supplier, noting that would also place the burden on 9-1-1 agencies to write bid specifications carefully to assure that only reliable and appropriate equipment would meet the specifications.

The PSC would hear from 9-1-1 people on two other occasions relating to tariffs and proposed N-1-1 service for newspapers.

Per 1,000 Line Charge

Jackson County 9-1-1 would question the data base tariff which was based on a per-1,000 charge. The question was whether it was fair for a county to be charged for 1,000 customers, when in fact it only had a handful. In the case of Jackson County, New Hope Telephone only had 30 customers in the county, but was tariffed to charge $150 per month data base charge.

The county was only receiving $25 per month from the phone company in surcharge fees. New Hope Telephone agreed to cut its data base charge in half, but Jackson County still felt the charge was unfair, but later let the matter drop.

N-1-1 Service

In 1993 NENA opposed South Central Bell's request to the PSC to introduce N-1-1 service, a three digit local dialing arrangement which enables a subscriber to deliver information over voice grade facilities to end users on a pay per call basis.

NENA President John Ellison wrote to the PSC voicing NENA's opposition to N-1-1 service. "We feel that if 9-1-1 becomes one of eight various services available through N-1-1 numbers our unique position in the public's mind will be greatly diminished. During an emergency there is no time to waste and someone dialing the sports line rather than 9-1-1 can be a fatal mistake. People involved in emergencies do not always act logically and if they are accustomed to dialing 6-1-1 on a regular basis they may well do so when faced with an emergency."

Ellison noted many calls are already received from individuals trying to reach directory assistance.

"We are not opposed to these services, just the numbers requested. We hope the public service commission will agree with us that the unique and vital character of 9-1-1 should not be equated with sports scores or weather and will require these services to use other numbers," stated Ellison.

The PSC would later deny the request, ordering that South Central Bell, "file a tariff reflecting the introduction of N-1-1 service, on a two year trial basis, subject to the provisions contained herein."

Those provisions required that the newspapers using the N-1-1 number provide effected 9-1-1 providers or NENA with summaries of "the aggregate number of calls made from each local calling area and, if possible, each exchange, to allow such E9-1-1 providers to analyze the impact, if any, of the allocation of such numbers on their emergency response systems."

The order also stated that if the E9-1-1 providers objected to the continuation following the trial period further proceedings would be conducted