FCC has gained ground in text-to-911 and improving location accuracy for vital public safety system
WASHINGTON – The 911 system is responsible for providing emergency dispatch for 300 million people. If it goes down for even a few hours, as happened in April 2014, millions will be affected and lives could be at risk.
In 2008, under mandate from the Congressional New and Emerging Technologies Improvement Act, the Federal Communications Commission began to examine ways to bring the U.S. 911 system into the 21st century by integrating new technological innovations and making the system more reliable.
In 2011, then FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, “The unfortunate truth is that the capability of our emergency response communications has not kept pace with commercial innovation – has not kept pace with what ordinary people now do every day with communications devices. The shift to [next-generation] 911 can’t be about if, but about when and how.”
AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless have agreed to implement a text-to-911 service within the next year.
Barbara Jaeger, president of the National Emergency Number Association, said, “As the public becomes more mobile and embraces new methods for communicating, 911 has to be ready to answer nonvoice requests for assistance. This historic agreement demonstrates the shared commitment of parties to serve the evolving needs of citizens in the digital age.”
Since then, the FCC has successfully implemented several of the policies it first laid out more than five years ago.
The FCC has created a certification registry that in order to join a company must verify “that it is technically ready to receive 911 text messages in the format requested. The appropriate local or state 911 service governing authority must have authorized the PSAP to accept and, by extension, the covered text provider to provide, text-to-911 service; and finally requesting PSAP must notify the covered text provider that it is both technically ready to receive 911 text messages and has been authorized to accept such messages.” Nationwide, 250-plus firms are now on this system.
The FCC has also implemented a series of proposals targeted at making it easier for dispatchers and emergency workers to locate 911 callers. The location accuracy enhancements come after a 2014 survey of 1,000 callers across 50 states showed that it was difficult to locate callers who dialed from cellphones while indoors.
At the time, 76% of 911 calls were from cellphones and 99% of those surveyed said increasing location accuracy was critical to public safety.
The FCC has addressed this issue by approving technology similar to that used by the ride-sharing service Uber to make it easier to track people who have called 911 from a mobile phone.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, commented on the comparison to Uber. “If we can have an app that gets a car service to the right door, we certainly should be able to get 911 to the right door consistently and reliably. It is a simple public-interest obligation.”
While the FCC’s efforts to modernize the U.S. emergency service network have found broad support from the industry and within government, efforts to update other FCC programs have floundered.
Attempts to expand the Lifeline Assistance Program, a government effort to connect low-income customers with phone lines, to now include broadband connections has met resistance on the Hill even as it’s embraced by the lobbyist community.
