Bill would hike
cell phone feesA new emergency service
would cost 66 cents a month
for local consumers
Hawaii's cell phone users will see a 66-cent increase in their monthly bill to help fund emergency services to locate cell phone calls to 911, under a bill being considered at the Legislature.
During a call, police and rescue services cannot currently tell the location of a cell phone in Hawaii. Callers must give an address or description of their location before rescue or police personnel can respond.
The measure (Senate Bill 3189) allows the wireless carrier to collect an extra charge, now estimated at 66 cents a month, from each cell phone user. The money would go to a state board to administer a program allowing operators to locate cell phone calls, and to pay for the program's implementation.
Operators are able to locate wired, or land line, telephone calls, but in Hawaii they can not locate a cell phone call.
The Federal Communication Commission required cell phone services to provide for the 911 locator service in 1999. Hawaii is one of the last states to move to adopt the program, according a Legislative Reference Bureau report.
"Unless and until implementation of wireless E911 is made a priority by state government, Hawaii will continue to lag behind the rest of the nation in providing this lifesaving service," said the report issued last month.
"In the meantime, we will continue to wonder how many lost accident victims, hikers and boaters could have been saved had we known where to find them," the report concluded.
Hawaii has about 750,000 cell phones, according to the report. The police report that Oahu's 911 service gets about a million calls a year and about half of them are from cell phones.
"Callers just assume we have their location, but we must use valuable minutes interviewing them to find out where they are," says Lt. Charles Chong, of the Honolulu Police Department Communications Division.
Emergency calls from tourists are some of the most frustrating, Chong said.
For instance, Chong says, if a lost or injured tourist calls 911 from a cell phone, saying he is at Waimea, the 911 operator has to find out if the call is from Waimea on the Big Island, Oahu's North Shore or Kauai.
The E911 service in various stages of operation across the mainland would give the operator needed information.
In the first stage of the E911 service, the operator will be able to determine a cell phone number and the cell phone tower handling the call.
In the second, more sophisticated stage, the operator will be able to locate the caller within 100 meters, either by satellite positioning or by taking the position from three cell phone towers.
The equipment to locate a caller is estimated to cost $425,000 with an additional annual operating cost of $750,000 for stage one, according to the report. Stage two one-time costs were estimated at up to $7.1 million.
The E911 surcharges across the country have ranged from a low of 20 cents to a high of $3 a cell phone.
Michael Bagley, public policy director with Verizon Wireless, said the carrier would not include the E911 charge until the state approves the measure.
Sen. Cal Kawamoto, chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, said he expects the bill to be approved in the Senate and move to the House for consideration next month.
