WASHINGTON (AP) - Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest mobile phone carrier, is asking the government for more time to install technology that will allow public safety personnel to pinpoint callers who dial 911.

The company joins other top industry players, including AT&T, Cingular, Nextel and VoiceStream, in seeking a delay to the October deadline for adding this function to its system. The Federal Communications Commission had mandated that carriers provide this capability so that emergency personnel could hone in on wireless callers.

About 45 million Americans made 911 calls from their wireless phones last year, according to public safety groups. That poses a challenge for officials who can't pinpoint caller locations, since people using cell phones are on the move and their number doesn't correspond to a fixed address. Some wireless providers can now provide location within broad ranges, from city blocks to miles in rural areas, and callback numbers.

But the commission said carriers needed to add technology so that 911 callers could be tracked with more precision. The least precise option allowed by the FCC would still give public safety personnel location information that is within about 328 feet of the caller 67 percent of the time and within about 984 feet 95 percent of the time.

The agency gave companies the option of meeting the mandate by adding location technology to their networks or to the handsets that consumers carry.

Verizon originally had planned to add the technology to all of its networks. But after some trials, the company decided it could reach consumers more quickly by selecting the handset option instead. In a filing with the commission, Verizon Wireless said it needed more time to implement this system.

``Only now are technically feasible, complete solutions starting to become available, but this is not in time for Verizon Wireless, or it believes any other wireless carrier, to meet the deadlines in the rules,'' the company wrote in a filing with the agency.

The company expects to start selling handsets with the location technology in December and anticipates that 100 percent of its new activated handsets will have the technology by the end of 2003.

The commission has only granted VoiceStream a waiver. An FCC spokesperson said each request for an extended deadline would be reviewed on an individual basis.