Carriers Could Curb Prank Calls to 911, NASNA Says
Wireless carriers have the technological capacity to curb prank calls to 911 from “nonservice-initialized” (NSI) handsets, the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) said in comments filed in FCC docket 08-51. Most carriers support an agency proposal that it…
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drop a requirement that calls from NSI phones must go through to public safety answering points (PSAPs) (see 1504020047). Carriers could require that these phones be registered with the owner’s name and forward this information with the call to the PSAPs, NASNA said. Carriers also have the “technical means” to block just fraudulent calls, it said. These two solutions, “had they been implemented, could have resolved the fraudulent NSI call issue long ago," the group said. One NASNA member describes prank calls to PSAPs as a “plague,” the association said. “Accidental 911 calls may be lower than in the past since today’s smart phones do not have an ‘emergency call’ feature available from the lock screen like they used to, but it is no more difficult to make a fraudulent 911 call from a smart phone than from any other cellular device.”