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’
The technology also could be useful in many dangerous scenarios—for instance, a domestic attacker or a hostage situation—in which a victim may not be able speak safely to 911 but could text 911 without being noticed by a perpetrator.
In addition to approving the text-to-911 policy statement, FCC commissioners approved initiating a proceeding for a proposed rule that would require all text providers support text to 911 by the end of the year. If industry voluntarily reaches a satisfactory agreement with public safety, the rulemaking would only codify the agreement, according to an FCC press release. If no such voluntary agreement is reached, the rulemaking would determine how text to 911 would be implemented.
One of the big questions facing the commission is whether companies that provide “over-the-top” texting applications also should be required to support text-to-911 functionality. FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly expressed concerns that the cost to support text-to-911 service could negatively impact over-the-top text providers and questioned whether the FCC has the legal authority to regulate over-the-top services.
Wheeler acknowledged that the FCC faces a “regulatory seesaw” on the possibility of requiring over-the-top providers to support text-to-911 functionality. But FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn noted that the six most popular over-the-top text applications supported an average of 19 billion messages per day and that such applications are challenging the popularity of SMS texting provided by wireless carriers.
Given the popularity of over-the-top texting services, Wheeler indicated that he would be in favor of those companies also supporting text to 911.
“Texting is texting,” Wheeler said during the meeting.
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.