Unanimous FCC Agrees to Tackle Misrouted Wireless Calls to 911

All four FCC commissioners expressed support Wednesday for proposed rules to more precisely route wireless 911 calls and texts to public safety answering points through location-based routing (LBR). The NPRM wasn’t controversial while before commissioners, though industry is expected to weigh in during the comment period (see 2212200064).

As many as 23 million wireless calls per year may be routed to the wrong PSAP using legacy 911 systems, said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at the commissioners' open meeting: “We can fix this, and we should.”

Rosenworcel urged Congress to dedicate money from spectrum auctions to next-generation 911. “We need to make sure that the more than 6,000 [PSAPs] across the country are not stuck with old systems designed for the era of analog calling,” she said: “We need every one of them to be able to take full advantage of the digital age, with emergency communications systems that support voice, text, data, and video as well as more redundancy to protect against outages.”

“Wireless 911 calls have historically been routed to 911 call centers based on the location of the cell tower that handles the call,” said a news release: “But in some cases -- for example, if a 911 call is made near a county or a city border -- the nearest cell tower may be in a neighboring jurisdiction. In these cases, the call may be routed to a 911 call center in that neighboring jurisdiction, not the call center that serves the caller’s location.” Rerouting “can waste valuable time and resources during emergencies,” the FCC said.

“Back in the era of copper, you could generally trust the network to connect you to a dispatcher who possessed the authority to send help to your physical address,” but that has changed with most 911 calls now made on wireless phones, said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “Far too many 911 calls, over 100,000 in the D.C. area alone, according to one estimate, are answered by the wrong call center,” he said: “In other words, while it sure has become easier to place a call during an emergency since the 1960s, the system has in fact slipped backwards in its basic bond to get your call where it needs to go on the first dial.”

Commissioner Brendan Carr noted a recent visit he made to a PSAP in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which handles more than 40,000 calls a year. “There really isn't a lot of downtime at these call centers -- the phone is always going off,” he said. Subsequently, Natisha Claypool, assistant dispatch manager for the Fayetteville Police Department, filed comments at the FCC saying about 30% of the 911 calls received there are misroutes, due to calls hitting cellular towers that border the jurisdiction, Carr noted. “That's roughly 12,000 calls,” he said.

Misrouted calls take “minutes away when seconds can make the difference,” Carr said. “Given the high call volume at a lot of these small call centers, it’s taking up resources in different 911 call centers,” he said. “I’m very much supportive of the chairwoman in bringing forward an item that could look to some technology solutions to help end, or at least make a big dent, in those cell-tower-based misroutes,” he said.

All four commissioners also voted to approve an LBR record refresh in June (see 2206080040). The FCC earlier sought comment in a 2018 notice of inquiry (see 1806290047).

The National Emergency Number Association noted more than 80% of 911 calls are now made from wireless devices. “The consequences of misrouted 9-1-1 calls can be life-altering, and we are thrilled that the FCC has taken the lead to build a fair and reasonable regulatory environment that better facilitates end-to-end NG9-1-1 services,” said CEO Brian Fontes: “This common-sense move will reduce response times for millions of 9-1-1 calls that occur each year and will save lives.”

“The wireless industry continues to invest in and deploy technologies that enhance the accuracy and reliability of location information for wireless 9-1-1 calls,” emailed Christiaan Segura, CTIA director-regulatory affairs: “Device-based hybrid and other innovative location technology solutions offer increasingly accurate, actionable location information and they require adequate development, testing, and careful coordination with PSAPs, as factors unique to each wireless provider and PSAP must be considered to ensure that solutions deliver mission-critical performance for public safety.”