PSAPs learning from early text-to-911 deployments

In Durham, N.C., it recently was announced that Sprint is delivering text-to-911 communications to the Durham Emergency Communication Center, which previously announced similar arrangements with Verizon in August 2011 and with AT&T in March of this year.

“We’ve got three of the big four: Verizon, AT&T and Sprint,” Soukup said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Hopefully, we’ll have T-Mobile by the end of the month or not too long thereafter.”

Even with three carriers ready to send emergency texts to the Durham PSAP, the new functionality has little impact on the center’s operations, Soukup said.

“Still, there’s very little activity—if any—of people texting, which kind of proves the point that texting should only be used if talking puts you in danger or if you are hearing impaired. Those are uncommon things in the public. And, because there is a lot of texting, they know the limitations; [texting] does take longer than just calling and talking. But it’s a good tool to have in those instances where it is appropriate and needed.”

But texting to 911 is a tool that is available in only a few areas of the U.S. currently. Of the more than 6,000 PSAPs in the nation, less than 200 can accept emergency texts or will be able to do so very soon, according to Brian Fontes, CEO of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA).

“It’s going to take time on the PSAP side, for a couple of reasons,” Fontes said. “One, there will likely be some costs associated with this, and to get money for any type of improvements to a 911 center isn’t as simple as just writing a check. You have to go through a process to get money, if there is money available.

“And then there’s leadership at large. I think most people recognize the importance of texting to 911 for the 41 million Americans that have some form of speech or hearing impairment. But there are others—and this is just human nature—that may be fearful of the unknown. Therefore, they are concerned that immediately they are going to be inundated with text messaging and what does that mean in terms of staff time, as well as skill sets that need to be gained or improved upon.”

Such concerns are understandable, but the fears of large volumes of text messages hitting 911 centers do not appear to be an issue, Fontes said. In addition to the anecdotal evidence provided by 911 directors like Bien and Soukup, a recent survey indicates that most people plan to communicate with 911 via a voice call, he said.

“The bottom line of the survey was that, when people interface with 911, they prefer to talk with someone rather than to text with someone,” Fontes said. “So, if that’s the preference, then—other than those with disabilities—I don’t see folks radically moving to texting as a means of communicating with 911.”