What a difference a year of experience makes. The public safety groups that were pushing for exacting standards for locating users are realizing that there is only so much the technology can do at this stage. There is no surprise that cell phones are harder to locate inside buildings and in rural areas. But now they are starting to realize that the best solution for everyone at this stage is to let some phone companies get some waivers in areas where the geography makes location especially difficult.

With the relaxing of the standards, the FCC is officially letting the issue slide. But it is only temporary. A solution still needs to be found, especially since so many people use their cell phones so much of the time.

For this first generation system, this is really the best solution. There is no point in spending huge amounts of money to locate users in places where few users ever go. It will allow the money that could have gone into such a system to be deployed elsewhere in the network to improve features for more users.