The National Emergency Numbering Association held its annual meeting here in Denver last week. During my albeit brief attendance, I got a glimpse of the PSAP view on E-911 implementation.
The meeting’s focus and theme of “One Common Cause” actually encompassed several focuses, as stated by NENA President John Melcher, all toward improving public access to emergency services for any person, using any device, anywhere, at any time. A common mission for wireless and public safety alike.
Recently Melcher said that the 911 system in the United States is falling short, and government leaders and the telecom world must work together to accelerate E-911. Only about 10 percent of public safety answering points currently are able to give precise locations for at least some received wireless 911 calls.
Recent incidents in which various emergency victims wirelessly dialed 911 and were unable to receive help have been covered heavily in the media, as have high-profile legislative efforts to improve E-911 implementation. Both types of attention are good for the cause.
Still there is a great deal of disconnect between the E-911 participants, a large amount of public misinformation about E-911 and a great educational rift among consumers about what their wireless phones are actually capable of providing in emergencies.
We recycle phones to give to the elderly and abused to use specifically in cases of emergencies, but are those folks also told that the call center on the other end may not be able to locate them when that emergency occurs?
Meanwhile the PSAPs feel that the carriers are willing to put out only as much funding and effort to implement E-911 as is necessary to avoid being fined by the FCC.
Yet evidence of E-911 money being used for other expenditures in some municipalities has been recently brought to light.
At least according to CTIA’s Tom Wheeler, who described E-911 as a three-legged stool-made up of wireless, 911 agencies and local telephony companies-“the strongest leg on the stool right now is wireless.”
The players in this effort are many with varied voices and interests. The costs and the stakes are high. Ironically all of the E-911 players are communicators (who don’t seem to communicate very well with each other) working toward a “common cause.”
The only party that really pays for further delays and dissonance in E-911 in the end is the American public.
