AT&T teams with Intrado to provide location-based routing of 911 calls

Wireless emergency calls from AT&T customers will be routed to 911 centers based the caller’s location—not the location of the cell tower used to make the call—throughout the nation by the end of June, AT&T announced yesterday.

AT&T claims it is the first carrier to launch location-based routing, thanks to a new “Locate Before Route” feature from Intrado that leverages GPS and “hybrid information” from a 911 caller’s device to provide more accurate location information to a public-safety answering point (PSAP). This new routing method is accurate within 50 meters of the device, while the previous routing method—based on the location of cell towers—provides estimated locations in an area with a radius of up to 10 miles, according to an AT&T press release.

This legacy cell-tower-based location has been particularly problematic when emergency calls are made by callers who are near the edge of PSAP territorial boundaries, because the tower used to make the call could be in a different PSAP territory—or even a different state—than the location of the caller. Public-safety representatives have long cited this issue as a reason why some 911 calls are misrouted to the wrong PSAP, which often can result in delayed responses as information from a 911 call is transferred to the proper PSAP.

Kurt Mills, executive director for Snohomish County (Wash.) 911—the first PSAP to test the location-based-routing capability—said he believes location-based routing will save valuable time, allowing first-response agencies to provide help to the public more quickly.

“We share a busy border with King County and are thrilled with the significant decrease in 9-1-1 transfers,” Mills said in a prepared statement. “We know that 9-1-1 transfers delay emergency response and the winner here is our community. We very much appreciate the public-private partnership between our agency, AT&T and Intrado that allowed us to be the first in the nation to implement this new routing technology.”

Chris Sambar, executive vice president of AT&T Network, echoed this sentiment.

“Providing our customers with reliable connectivity and high-quality service on America’s largest wireless network is what we strive for everyday at AT&T,” Sambar said in a prepared statement. “Launching this industry-leading public-safety solution allows us to ultimately help improve the connections and efficiency for our wireless customers by offering more accurate service when making emergency calls.”

To prepare for the rollout, AT&T conducted “rigorous testing” to ensure that the technology would route calls to the appropriate PSAP without introducing any delays in call delivery, according to a statement provided by an AT&T spokesperson to IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

We conducted testing in our lab and in the field over the past 18 months to analyze 911 call flows and identify any areas where we could improve the call flows to get us to where we are today,” according to the AT&T statement.

Location-based routing already is available in 16 states—Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota—and Guam, according to AT&T. The rollout of location-based routing for 911 will continue during the next several weeks, and the new functionality is expected to be available nationwide by the end of June.

This rollout does not require any action by consumers or PSAPs, according to an AT&T spokesperson.

During the past decade, technology used to locate devices that use cellular networks has improved dramatically, resulting in significant growth within the location-based-services industry. While satellite-based GPS remains the foundation of location information, location-based routing also incorporates “hybrid information” from other sensor-based technologies, according to a statement from an AT&T spokesperson provided to IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

“When a 9-1-1 call is placed from a mobile device, hybrid location uses multiple sensors on the device to locate it through different sources,” according to the AT&T spokesperson’s statement. “These sources include GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, pressure from the atmosphere, and orientation relative to gravity.

“The sensors on the device will use the most reliable information from these sources to provide the most accurate location, whether indoors or outdoors. This … can avoid the common issues of GPS, like the inability to provide location when traveling in a tunnel or losing track of location when in a city.”

Accurately locating wireless callers who dial 911 is particularly important today, when 80% of 911 calls come from mobile devices and 68% of adults do not have a landline phone in their residence. Improving the accuracy of location information from wireless 911 calls—whether initiated outdoors or from inside a building—has been a priority for the FCC in recent years.

Jeff Robertson, president of Intrado Life & Safety, said he glad to see AT&T implement location-based routing for 911 calls.

“Location-based routing is a significant accomplishment for public safety,” Robertson said in a prepared statement. “I’m proud of our collaboration with AT&T and look forward to continued innovation with them as we combine our technologies for the benefit of public safety—doing the right thing for the right reasons.”