The FCC proposed improvements to its wireless 911 location accuracy rules on Thursday. The rules cut emergency response times and help 911 call centers and first responders to quickly identify the location of people who call 911 from wireless phones.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said during the vote that when he spent time with firefighters in Fairfax, County, VA a few years ago, they “emphasized the importance of 911 solutions that can help them quickly locate both victims and fellow responders during emergency situations.”
After that, the agency adopted rules that made it easier for first responders to find callers in apartments and office buildings. “But our real-life experience since then shows that there are still too many instances when first responders are not getting the actionable location information they need in emergency situations,” Carr said.
The Commission requires wireless service providers to deliver location information with all 911 calls that identifies the caller’s horizontal and vertical location within specified accuracy thresholds, as validated in an independent test bed. Vertical location information is particularly useful in identifying the location of wireless 911 callers inside multistory buildings.
While these rules have led to “significant improvements” in locating 911 callers, public safety authorities have voiced concerns about the precision and format of the vertical location information they receive and the adequacy of the test bed process, according to the FCC. That’s why the Commission proposed fine-tuning its rules while balancing the needs of industry and promoting technical flexibility.
In a Sixth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission seeks comment on:
- Requiring wireless providers to deliver vertical location information to 911 call centers measured in Height Above Ground Level, instead of Height Above Ellipsoid, to provide more actionable information to first responders.
- Requiring that the industry test bed validate the performance of vertical location technologies in dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural environments rather than the current approach that allows aggregating or averaging performance across environments.
- Providing non-nationwide wireless providers and certain major public safety organizations expanded access to test bed data, and allowing these public safety organizations to challenge test bed validations.
- Ways to increase the number of wireless 911 calls that convey dispatchable location information with the call.
- Improving horizontal location accuracy for wireless 911 calls and location accuracy for text-to-911.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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