Public Safety Groups Want FCC to Push Carriers to Adopt Location-Based Routing
Public safety groups urged the FCC to push for more use of location-based routing (LBR) to 911 call centers, in response to a June public notice, approved by commissioners 4-0 (see 2206080040). T-Mobile said how industry addresses the issue should be voluntary without the imposition of new FCC rules. AT&T and T-Mobile said implementation has to be done carefully and takes time.
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The notice explores LBR and how to ensure calls are routed to the closest possible call center, even if made near a county or city border. Comments were posted this week in docket 18-64. The FCC is refreshing a record developed four years ago (see 1805080040).
“Modern devices are capable of deriving location estimates quickly enough to substantially improve routing and some nationwide wireless carriers have begun implementing location-based routing voluntarily,” APCO said. “Routing 9-1-1 calls based on the device’s location rather than relying solely upon cell sector-based routing will save lives,” the group said. “The technology is available today, and the Commission should act quickly to require service providers to implement it.”
The National Emergency Number Association urged the FCC to consider requiring carriers to “fully support standards-based” next-generation 911 “within a limited time frame after a 9-1-1 authority affirms that it can support location-based routing and NG9-1-1 standards-compliant call origination.” NENA said it’s “very rational to conclude from available evidence” that universal support for LBR would mean lower response times “for tens of millions of emergency calls per year, and in doing so, will save lives.”
NENA estimates 23 million wireless 911 calls are misrouted each year in the U.S. when cell sector-based routing is used, but universal use of LBR could cut that to closer to 3.45 million. Misrouted calls consume 911 operators’ time and lead to deaths, the group said. The average transfer takes 40 seconds to a minute, NENA estimates: “A patient experiencing cardiac arrest can experience permanent brain damage in as few as 5 minutes. For these patients, 40 seconds can mean the difference between a full recovery versus disability or death.”
The FCC was right to refresh the 2018 record, said the National Association of State 911 Administrators. NASNA supports “the deployment of higher accuracy location acquisition solutions by the wireless carriers in order to facilitate useful LBR capabilities” at the next-generation core services solutions (NGCS) and emergency services IP networks (ESInets) level, the group said: “Without stronger Commission rules around the transparency and verification of how a carrier defines LBR and its metrics, assessing this technology’s impact on improved 911 call routing will not be meaningful.”
T-Mobile said it was the first national carrier to implement LBR. “Encourage the voluntary adoption of location-based routing” and avoid actions "that would adversely affect [public safety answering points] and Public Safety, including by mandating the activation of location-based routing where doing so would not improve emergency response,” the carrier said.
AT&T said it’s using LBR across its wireless network since June. “We use handset-provided location from Apple’s Hybrid Emergency Location (HELO) or Google’s Emergency Location Service (ELS) to provide the location estimate for routing,” the carrier said: “The handset-based location is available for location-based routing on the vast majority of iOS and Android devices.” AT&T said implementation is complicated: “The ongoing advance of technologies holds great promise to solve many public safety issues but … these technologies must be given sufficient time for development and rigorous testing to ensure that the deployed solutions deliver mission critical performance for public safety,” AT&T said.