Wireless 911 calls have been a challenge since Day 1 of wireless phones, and they remain so even with all of the advancements in technology over the past several decades.
To wit: FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel described something she witnessed at a call center in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was a small but active center, with desks humming as calls came in. But something stuck with her about how calls were routed there.
If a person calls 911 using a wireless phone from a corner in the 911 call center, the call won’t get routed to the appropriate answering point in Little Rock. Instead, it will be answered by a 911 call center in North Little Rock, which is on the other side of the Arkansas River.
“That’s a problem because when you make a 911 call, seconds matter. 911 calls that are routed to the wrong call center need to be rerouted to the right one and that takes time you may not have,” she said during Wednesday’s open FCC meeting.
Since the FCC started a Notice of Inquiry in 2018, progress has been made. Device makers started to configure handsets to allow carriers to gather information for purposes of emergency routing. In December 2020, T-Mobile launched location-based routing in certain locations in Texas and Washington state. More recently, in May 2022, AT&T announced a plan for the nationwide rollout of location-based routing on its network.
Still, for much of the country, the closest cell tower with the strongest signal will route the 911 call and that doesn’t guarantee it will go to the right call center for the fastest help. That’s why the FCC is jump-starting efforts to support location-based routing and reviewing steps it can make to improve call routing, according to Rosenworcel.
The commission voted 4-0 to revisit the proceeding that had been launched in 2018. The new Public Notice will examine the state of technology that can more precisely route wireless 911 calls to the proper 911 call center, with the goal being faster response times during emergencies.
Who pays for upgrades?
Rosenworcel also went a step further to address one of the big challenges in making improvements to the 911 call system: the challenge of paying for next-gen 911 upgrades at some 6,000 public safety answering points (PSAPs) around the country where many of them are still using technology that was designed when the majority of calls were coming from wireline phones.
The FCC’s auction authority is scheduled to expire September 30, providing a chance for Congress to mandate that some auction proceeds be used for the kinds of upgrades that are needed.
“We should work with Congress and public safety officials to use the billions of dollars that FCC spectrum auctions raise to build the public infrastructure this country needs, starting with using future auction revenues to fund the nation’s transition to next-generation 911,” Rosenworcel said in prepared remarks.
“I think this is a golden opportunity,” she added. “It would benefit public safety nationwide – and every one of us who dials 911 when the unthinkable occurs. In short, we can have an updated public emergency calling system that is built for the digital age, and we can use public airwaves to do it.”
Meanwhile, the notice adopted by the commission Wednesday will seek updated information on a litany of items, including the frequency of misrouted wireless 911 calls, industry standards to address the problem of misroutes and how the commission can facilitate improvements to wireless 911 call routing.