Getting accurate location information for indoor wireless 911 must be a priority

“Location, location, location”—it’s long been the answer for the three most important things in real estate, but determining location has become crucial in a number of other industries. Perhaps none of these are as important as public safety, where the ability to determine the location of a victim can be the difference between life and death.

Last week, the initial comment period closed on the FCC proceeding to examine potential location-accuracy requirements for locating those seeking help via the 911 system while communicating with a wireless device from an indoor location. A reply-comment period still needs to transpire, but the public-safety community—from law enforcement to fire/EMS to 911 officials—was overwhelming in its support of the FCC proposal to establish indoor-location accuracy requirements.

This support is not surprising, given the circumstances faced by first responders. With the proliferation of cell phones, more than 70% of all calls to 911 are coming from these consumer handheld devices. In addition, more than 30% of households have “cut the cord” and do not even subscribe to wireline phone services that automatically very good location data. In addition, people travel more than ever, so they often are not familiar with their environment and may not be able to provide a verbal description of their location.

These two growing trends mean that an ever-increasing number of calls to 911 are coming from indoor locations, where no location-accuracy rules currently apply. While many applications rely on GPS-based location systems, they are of little help indoors, because the GPS satellite signal is blocked by the exterior of a building.

This is particularly problematic in structures like multi-level apartment buildings. In many cases, apartment residents choose not to have a wireline phone, because they are trying to save money and/or because they rarely are in the apartment while awake—it makes more sense to have friends and family call them on a cell phone that is with them almost at all times.

But such circumstances can be troublesome for public safety, when a call is made to 911 from such structures. In many cases, the XY coordinates for providing latitude and longitude location data is not accurate, because of the aforementioned limitations of GPS. Furthermore, even when accurate XY coordinates are available, finding the right room in a multi-level apartment or office building can take considerable time, because no vertical information—the Z axis—is available to indicate what floor the emergency caller is on.