Major Carriers Release Details of 911 Location Accuracy Plan
A plan to implement and deploy improved location accuracy capability for 911 calls features a test bed, milestones based on live wireless 911 call data, and reporting metrics for live calls. The plan, released Tuesday evening, was drafted by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, and the public safety entities APCO and the National Emergency Number Association. The parties said the plan proposes to allow first responders to have a “dispatchable” location through the availability of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies (see 1411170045).
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The proposals look at how to continue moving the ball forward in terms of accuracy and getting meter level coordinates, and it also examines how to accelerate getting "dispatchable" location, said Joe Marx, AT&T assistant vice president-federal regulatory. Carriers have begun to deploy technologies that will improve latitude and longitude reporting, which includes Observed Time Difference of Arrival and Global Navigation Satellite System, he said.
The carriers will work with APCO and NENA to create a technology neutral test bed within 12 months, the plan said. The test bed will characterize the performance of location technology solutions that may result in improved horizontal and vertical accuracy, and the provision of a dispatchable location, it said. The test bed will differ from some prior test beds, it said. Prior test beds had a “sandbox” approach, Marx said. "All vendors were able to test technology that wasn’t ready to deploy," he said. "We’d still have that capability to test any vendor technology to improve location accuracy, but we’d also work towards characterizing technologies that we’ve got on the roadmap to deploy already."
Carriers plan to use a variety of heightened location accuracy technologies providing public safety answering points (PSAPs) with a dispatchable location within 50 meters using a variety of technologies, the plan said. Within two years, 40 percent of all wireless 911 calls will have improved indoor and outdoor location accuracy, and 75 percent of all voice-over-LTE calls will have the capability within six years, it said. The carriers also will collect and report data from live calls “to evaluate the effectiveness of various positioning sources methods” used to locate wireless 911 calls, it said.
The parties identified some of the recommendations as provisions to be included in the FCC rules, the plan said. Those recommendations have the potential to supplant the existing rules and use what has been proposed as the new rules in the long term, Marx said.
The agreement would improve emergency response in a small percentage of cases, said Joseph Benkert, attorney for Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service. It may “make emergency response less effective and more dangerous for first responders,” he said in an email. Generally, the location technologies produce a set of geographic coordinates, and there is a margin of error in any location provided, he said. The provision of "dispatchable addresses" by providers may suggest that a wireless 911 call came from a specific address or unit "when first responders should be advised of any uncertainty as to the location," he said. The plan doesn’t appear to address how quickly location information will be provided, or implementation of Phase II routing, he said.
Sprint praised the plan for proposing a new approach to indoor location accuracy that can help improve locating wireless callers “while taking advantage of ongoing changes in wireless technology,” it said in a statement. Sprint wants to assist its customers with the best available method of reaching local 911 dispatchers “and provide continued enhancements in location data,” it said.
The agreement builds on “well-defined, core principles that are key to an effective location information solution,” said Kathy Grillo, Verizon senior vice president-federal regulatory affairs. “It enables the public safety community to benefit as innovations and new technologies come online.”