FCC chairman on text to 911: PSAPs need to ‘get with it’
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FCC chairman on text to 911: PSAPs need to ‘get with it’
FCC commissioners today voted unanimously to approve a policy statement designed to help make text-to-911 capability available nationwide by the end of the year, but FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said that public-safety answering points (PSAPs) need to ‘step up’ to make the text-to-911 vision a reality.
The FCC’s approval of the text-to-911 policy statement comes more than a year after the four nationwide wireless carriers—Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile—signed a voluntary agreement committing to support text-to-911 service by May 15 of this year, in areas where PSAPs can receive texts. In its policy statement, the FCC encouraged similar voluntary commitments from other wireless carriers and text providers.
But carrier support of text to 911 only can provide consumers with another emergency-communication option where PSAPs have changed their systems in a manner that allow them to receive text messages through the 911 system. Thus far, few PSAPs have made the technological transition.
That needs to change, Wheeler said.
“Since wireless carriers serving 90% of all the wireless subscribers in America pledged to do text to 911, the response from the PSAPs has been underwhelming—only a handful of PSAPs have put this capability in place,” Wheeler said during the FCC meeting, which was webcast. “As we begin this process, we call on the PSAPs to get with it.
“The industry has done its part; the FCC has done its part. Now, it’s time for the PSAPs to do their part … It’s time to step up.”
The FCC has no regulatory authority over PSAPs, but Wheeler said “we can monitor and report on the activities of the PSAPs.”
During a press conference after the meeting, Wheeler was asked whether the small number of PSAPs that support text to 911 was reflective of funding shortage that may be preventing them from investing in the technological changes needed to receive 911 text messages. Wheeler acknowledged that funding problems exist in the 911 arena, noting that some states continue to raid 911 funding revenue and use them for other purposes.
Support for text-to-911 functionality among consumers has been considerable, particularly in the hard-of-hearing community that has largely abandoned the legacy TTY service that is integrated with 911 in favor of texting services that are available via computer and mobile devices.
While it is truly admirable
While it is truly admirable that the FCC wants everyone “to get with the program”, it is obvious that this federal body is no longer in a position to help and support but is attempting to mandate without understanding. I know that many agencies are beginning to seek out ways of being able to consume this type of communication into intelligible, serviceable, bits but the fact is that PSAP communication centers are not capable at this time of being able to manage and rapidly triage waves of text/tweets/etc. that can come in. Liability of missing just one message in a wave of other messages is high and can be tragic, since this would be considered as an acceptable way to ask for help. Being able to discriminate intelligibility out of a lot of noise like this is just not yet possible. It’s a good thing that the FCC, back in the 70’s, didn’t come out and say something idiotic like “Hey, why aren’t there any CB radios installed and monitoring channel 9 in all dispatch centers and emergency vehicles? This is the wave of the future, so call centers should be listening for calls for help on this new, emerging popular technology.”
PSAP communication centers control how much they can handle through the limited number of accessible lines activated and presented into a center. What is being pushed here is to allow for a virtually limitless form of communciations to come into a center, all of which would need to be handled one by one by individuals. While there are some emerging intellegence solutions that might be available in the future to help with this, jumping on board with this form of communications at this time is high risk, not only for liability reasons for the agencies, but, more importantly, for the safety of those that need the services. The FCC really needs to talk with people that understand how systems and PSAP’s actually work, rather than just those that will easily bob their heads up and down to get funding or political favor. One important question that is unanswered is why this is a necessity. How will this improve public safety support? The bottleneck is, as it has been for many years PSAP staffing and the number of available public safety employee resources. All the incoming lines, computer terminals, etc. can be installed, but you need the bodies to handle them and the bodies to respond. Without looking at the whole “system” the FCC is only trying to look modern and popular with actions and statements like this. Not effective.
Between the unfunded mandate
Between the unfunded mandate for narrowbanding that took $3.4 million to implement in our county, and the State of Washington Legislature sweeping $20+ million of dedicated State 9-1-1 funds for non-9-1-1 purposes over the past 3 years, blaming PSAPs for not stepping up is just ridiculous. We all want to be able to provide Next Generation modernization, but where does the money come from Chairman Wheeler?
Chairman Wheeler needs to
Chairman Wheeler needs to attend a NENA or APCO conference and conduct sort of a ‘Town Hall’ type meeting on the subject. I think he’d get a ear full. Between Washington not delivering on promised funds for PSAP upgrades, politicians raiding state 911 coffers, wireless 911 surcharges at half the rate of landline, states that don’t know when they’ll get their ESInet build-the list goes on! Somebody needs to give him the facts and without the sugar coating!
Chairman Wheeler is a
Chairman Wheeler is a cellular industry cheerleader with little to no understanding of the challenges faced by comm centers across the country. He really needs to get a grip on what this mandate truly means. And is the FCC going to come up with the funding for all the additional personnel that will be needed?
How about the FCC trying to
How about the FCC trying to pass legislation mandating 911 funds ONLY BE USED FOR 911?? Then maybe we could pay for some new technology.