Today, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International – the world’s largest association of public safety communications professionals – welcomed the adoption of new rules by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that will ensure emergency responders have the information they need to find 9-1-1 callers.

The general public is increasingly using cell phones to call 9-1-1, including from inside buildings. When a caller is unable to describe where he or she is, 9-1-1 centers and first responders need to have the most accurate location information possible in order to best ensure a rapid and effective response. Yet until today, FCC rules requiring wireless carriers to deliver accurate location information to 9-1-1 applied only to calls placed from outdoors. While location information delivered with outdoor calls has been continually improving, the lack of a solution for indoor 9-1-1 calls has been a growing public safety concern.

In February 2014, the FCC took an important step, proposing rules for improving 9-1-1 location accuracy for wireless calls made from both outdoors and indoors. In addition to outlining specific proposals, the FCC had the foresight to encourage public safety, industry, and other stakeholders to work collaboratively to develop alternative approaches for its consideration. APCO applauded the FCC’s proposal and its initiative to invite alternatives. With its decades of experience in 9-1-1 services and leadership in public safety communications, APCO began working with the nation’s largest wireless carriers and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) to develop a plan that would lead to the best possible solutions.

For indoor location, APCO championed a “dispatchable location” as the gold standard for public safety. This means the civic address, plus additional information such as the apartment number, floor and office suite, or whatever is required to get first responders to the emergency. Put another way, APCO strived for a location solution that matched the accuracy delivered for landline phones, which consumers have come to expect. APCO also pressed for a solution that is technology-neutral, and moves public safety off of its traditional dependence on single-source, proprietary solutions.

After seven months of negotiation, APCO was proud to join as signatory with its partners to a “Roadmap for Improving E911 Location Accuracy” that focused on providing a dispatchable location and putting 9-1-1 solutions on track with advances in commercial technology.

APCO remained steadfast in its support of the Roadmap, and its goals of a dispatchable location and a technology-neutral solution, as it collaborated with its partners, other stakeholders, and the FCC. At the same time, APCO worked to correct disinformation campaigns by propriety solution vendors and ensure that its membership of 9-1-1 professionals and decision makers at the FCC had all the facts before them.

In the end, the Commission adopted an Order that substantially embraces the Roadmap, including additional assurances that APCO supported and worked with its partners to achieve. As a result, all will benefit from dramatic improvements to 9-1-1 location accuracy.

“APCO is proud to have worked with the FCC, the wireless carriers, NENA, and other stakeholders to set a path that provides meaningful, dispatchable location information to our nation’s public safety communications professionals and first responders as they protect the life and property of our citizens,” said APCO Executive Director Derek Poarch.

Mr. Poarch continued, “the wireless indoor 9-1-1 problem required new thinking: leveraging widely-deployed, commercial location-based services, ensuring a new degree of openness and transparency in a technology-neutral test bed for proving performance of location technologies, having public safety become part of the solution along with the industry, using live 9-1-1 call data for the first time to track improvements, and forging a new regulatory model for solving increasingly important and complex public safety issues. Throughout negotiations with the carriers, meetings with the FCC and other stakeholders, and relentless advocacy from vendors with a significant financial interest, APCO held true to its principles. I want to thank Chairman Wheeler and the Commissioners, their staff, and the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau for taking a collaborative approach to solving this important public safety problem. Hard work lies ahead. APCO remains committed to being part of the solution and ensuring that when someone calls 9-1-1 we can get them help immediately.”

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APCO International® (www.apcointl.org)
APCO International is the world’s oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals and supports the largest U.S. membership base of any public safety association. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide – and the welfare of the general public as a whole.