FCC To Allow Texting To 911

tekgoblin writes "The FCC is looking into allowing people to report incidents to 911 via SMS from their mobile phones. They are also considering mobile video to show the 911 service what is going on. The current 911 system handles around 230 million calls per year with most of the calls being from mobile phones. One situation influenced this move to allow texting to 911 was the Virginia Tech shooting. 'The technological limitations of 9-1-1 can have tragic, real-world consequences,' the release said. 'During the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting, students and witnesses desperately tried to send texts to 9-1-1 that local dispatchers never received. If these messages had gone through, first responders may have arrived on the scene faster with firsthand intelligence about the life-threatening situation that was unfolding.'"

Comments

What the hell

[Arancaytar]

Without interacting with the dispatcher, you can't be sure that you've provided the necessary info. Talking is faster than typing, even for a T9 wizard. Is there any reason why you should text a 911 responder instead of just calling them?

Re:What the hell

[Zironic]

Texting is a lot more silent if a criminal is nearby and might hear you, also a lot of people are idiots.

Re:What the hell

[DrgnDancer]

For precisely the reason in the summary. If you're inside on a bank robbery or other hostage type situation you can send a text in near complete silence. Talking to a dispatcher will make noise and potentially give away your position (and the fact that you're in contact with the outside). It's a limited use case, but happens often enough to justify the relatively small expense I would think.

Re:What the hell

[Doc Ruby]

The necessary info is almost always "I need the cops at location X". Usually just the call itself, which carries location info (E911 from mobiles), is sufficient. But sometimes telling the cops that the emergency is armed, perhaps heavily, the number of people, or some other details, can help the first responders arrive better prepared to cope with the situation more quickly, safely and effectively. But it's also common for people in the emergency not to be able to talk, lest they tip off the people causing the emergency.

Re:What the hell

[heikkile]

Here in Denmark we were taught that if the coverage is bad, as it often is at sea, a text message is more likely to make it through. Same might be the case with low battery situations, and even if speaking aloud is not safe, as could be the case in some shooting and hijacking situations. In some situations the background noise may make voice communications unreliable, and some accidents may even disturb your ability to speak... Many reasons to allow the use of text messages.

Re:What the hell

[tverbeek]

Especially in a crisis situation, a college student whose friends all have SMS-enabled phones, and even their old-fashioned parents do, might not stop to consider that the people at 911 - who supposedly have state of the art technology - don't.

Re:What the hell

[bsDaemon]

My dad somehow managed to butt dial 911 while at the gun range one day... that was a fun adventure.

Re:Lets get with the times

[Arancaytar]

And Facebook.

"Add 911 as Friend"
"Poke 911"
"Write on 911's Wall"

(Five people liked your wall post: "just got mugged omg help ".)

Based on the summary

[OzPeter]

Based on the summary it seems that the text generation expected 911 to work the way their life works. It is a pity that texting 911 didn't work and it is interesting that it is being investigated

Sounds problematic

[C_Kode]

This sounds very problematic. First off, you can text from a computer without a phone number. Prank text messages sounds like it could be a real problem.

Second, dispatch can't ask distinct questions and anyone who works in IT that has dealt with people with problems, they aren't always clear and concise what is happening.

Re:It better be free and work with txting blocked

[rjstanford]

It better be 100% free and work with txting blocked and even if you have no sim.

If you think you need to make a 911 contact, but wouldn't if it would cost you a dime, then you don't need to make a 911 contact.

Problem solved.

Re:They're kidding, right?

[Dracker]

What good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?

311 needs this at least as much as 911

[cduffy]

Hmm. I'd care about this much more for 311 (that is, the non-emergency catch-all city services line). Email wouldn't be bad either.

Seriously -- being able to send a photo of a pothole or a tree branch hanging too close to the road or someone illegally parked in a bike lane on a curve after a steep downhill (yes, there's an area on my commute matching exactly that description) with a GPS tag on the photo and a line or two of text would be much more convenient than pulling over and spending 5 minutes trying to figure out the address, walk the operator through deciding how to file the ticket (is it an immediate safety hazard or a maybe-next-week issue?), etc.