It’s An Emergency

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By Michelle Choi, an insider at Lease Advisors

Last year in California, 63% of cell phone calls did not transmit location data to 911 dispatchers and 12.4 million callers with emergency situations lost time due to the lack of connection. Data provided by the FCC showed that in most regions, a majority of emergency calls failed to relay rescue information to first respondents. It is incredibly disturbing that despite current technology, 73% of 240 million emergency calls coming from cell phones are not located 100% of the time. In a letter to the FCC from Danita Crombach, president of the California National Emergency Number Association, carriers were directly called out—AT&T provided location data 20% of the time, Sprint 21%, and Verizon 37%.

“I can check-in on Facebook and it will tell you exactly what building I’m in. I could be at the hockey game and it tells me I’m at First Niagara Center checking in on Facebook. But when you call 911, we don’t get that accurate location or information. The technology is out there, it’s just not getting to us at this point,” said Michelle Kerr, 911 Call Center Director at Central Police Headquarters in Buffalo.

The carriers, however, assert that they are following through on their end of the process. In the 911 system, the dispatcher’s computer digitally requests the caller’s location from the network, which should take from seconds to minutes but often does not return location information at all.

If unable to pin the location, carriers’ systems will roughly estimate the location using towers. This is considered phase II data as opposed to the ideal phase I data that locates the call within 1,000 feet Standards require that carriers deliver the data to their Global Mobile Positioning Center (GMPC) for the operators to pull by searching the Automatic Location Information (ALI) database. According to carriers, Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), 911 operators improperly request location data, failing to re-bid for more accurate location points. Carriers claim that while they are pushing the data, operators are failing to pull it.

Regardless of who takes the blame, the necessity of carriers, operators, and the FCC to cooperate and develop efficient systems to communicate data in emergency situations has increased with mounting frustrations against the current system. While the FCC originally had goals of 66% of cell phone calls successfully transmitting emergency location data by 2002, the newest goals stand at 40% by 2017 and 80% by 2021.

Many projects have been undertaken by to yield these goals, including improvement of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, updating outdated maps, moving from analog systems at numerous call centers into single centralized internet-based networks, development of location technologies, and working with companies Google and Uber who have mastered location services. Recently, a Harvard-based startup launched a Kickstarter to fund RapidSOS, an app that sends all necessary rescue information through the app and a panic button wearable, which is in beta testing with over a hundred call centers. Another effort to integrate increasing smart phone usage, text-to-911 implementation in certain markets that have elected to accept text messages are developing. A full list of participating call centers is on the FCC website. The FCC estimates that 10,000 lives would be saved a year with more accurate location standards—an achievable number if carriers and operators improve towers, systems, and centers that altogether brings first responders to the emergency victims who need them.

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