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Verizon To Begin Offering "Text To 911" Service
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that will likely elicit a 'why didn't they implement that sooner?' response, Verizon in the next 12 months will begin implementing a 'text to 911' feature that, as the name implies, will enable users contact 911 operators via text message to report an emergency. The feature will be particularly helpful for the hearing and/or speech impaired, and for folks who find themselves in dangerous situations where making a voice 911 call isn't advisable. Beginning in early 2013, Verizon will start rolling out the feature in various metropolitan areas before progressing to a nationwide rollout soon thereafter. In many respects, this move has been a long time coming, and something the FCC has been championing for a few years."
Why didn't they implement that sooner?
Hopefully there won't be any grammar nazis amongst the dispatchers.
Now, instead of getting multiple phone calls about a traffic accident, the dispatcher can much more quickly ignore the duplicates.
This is an ideal way of sending information when you want to report that you saw something that may need their attention, but you personally don't need a response.
They really need to support sending photos.
Its a good thing SMS is guaranteed realtime with guaranteed delivery. I've never had a text show up hours after it was sent while I'm now standing next to the person who sent it. Yep, its a beautiful service, one I'm happy to put my life in the care of.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
...and they haven't implemented it yet either!!
help sum dood is trying 2 rob teh bankz rotf
"What is your OMG?"
This is an ideal way of sending information when you want to report that you saw something that may need their attention, but you personally don't need a response.
Presuming you can get sufficient detail in the message to make it useful. 911 Operators typically ask questions for a reason. I can just see a whole bunch of text like "I saw an accident on I-80" with no further detail in the messages. Then the operator may need to call to find out the details.
Why hasn't someone created 911 video chat for mobile phones yet. Such a feature could be life saving. Rather than someone having to explain how bad the wounds are and what is happening, they can show the dispatcher and EMTs. The dispatcher can give better advice to the victim or victim's friend and even have quick videos on how to complete the action. Meanwhile, the EMTs can use the video feed to better figure out the best course of action before they get on site. If nothing else, a face is probably more reassuring than just a voice when you have an emergency.
As suggested by a Facebook friend, Jordan Elliot:
"OMG! thrs lik sum GUY ty 2 brake into my house! DAFUQ!?!? LOL PLS HLP!!!"
Dog is my co-pilot.
Will they be able to make the phone only talk/text to the 911 operator till they release the "line"?
Or perhaps turn on the audio, i.e. you text "I can't talk there is a burglar in my house", and they can turn on the phone/video and listen?
I suppose they could also make it take your picture to cut down on prank calls, otherwise how do they stop people saying "someone texted it in when I put the phone down" (yes they can cover the camera, but you know they will think of the feature)
Or turn on the video so you can show the 911 operator what is happening... which would be a cool feature for voice 911 calls as well.
I for one welcome our new smart phone overlords.
-jon
How about a feature that lets you send pictures, videos, and live-camera feed to 911?
Of course you'll need both the phone and the 911 call center to have this ability.
In the interim, how about making a smartphone app that does all of this:
* call your local 911 by voice and/or send a text
* determine if the 911 call center has the ability to receive images or files, and if so, allow the phone user to send them
* determine if the 911 call center has the ability to receive live camera feeds, and if so, allow the phone user to turn the camera on
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"OMG WTF im on fyre omg omg halp! were's my bffs da popo!" I feel terrible for the EMS operators...
Help there is a burger in my house!
As a firefighter/aemt, we already get multiple, redundant calls with no information because the caller is "driving by the scene and thought you should know." So now we'll get a text message with no way for the operator to try and pull more information from the caller.
"omg im dying plz help"
So we dispatch two ALS ambulance crews, an engine company and local first responders to find some idiot who broke his toe.
0_o
I know they can approximate your location with tower triangulation, but is there a way to share your continuously updated gps location with 911? What I mean is something like glympse (iphone app) for 911.
(I know, I know - lots of well-founded cynical jokes about the gov't already tracking you....)
Fire - exclamation mark - fire - exclamation mark - help me - exclamation mark. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours truly, ...
This would be ideal for certain situations where you need to contact the police but where it would be ill-advised to draw attention to yourself by making a phone call.
folks who find themselves in dangerous situations
I wonder if those folks will remember to put their phone on silent before sending a text message to 911, in the heat of the moment. Otherwise the reply message might attract some unwanted attention.
I have blocked txting as I do not want to pay for incoming span txts
now this 100% free or will you pay $0.10-$0.25 per txt each way?
You need to contact 911 and you are worried about $0.25 txt charges?
Perhaps you aren't clear on the concept of a "true emergency".
-jon
On one hand, it is probably a good idea to include a channel for emergency contact for the deaf/mute population, and for those in situations where audible speech is ill-advised, such as a hostage scenario...
THAT SAID, it is far more likely the system is going to be inundated with spam from, for lack of a more accurate descriptor, fucking imbeciles (who think taking 15 minutes to compose a 4 sentence message is somehow more efficient than taking 15 seconds to just call the person), which will cause it to appear useless and thus inevitably be abandoned.
I'm guessing this is one situation in which writing a pre-emptive obituary isn't an over-reaction.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If you call 911 in a situation where a conversation is dangerous HANG UP the police will make every attempt to locate you. This is a design feature of the 911 system.
I'm just wondering if my bill will go up. I already get the mandatory price for E911 so is this new feature going to be included in that E911 cost or will they charge me another fee or raise the existing E911 fee?
Don't get me wrong I think it's a good idea I just want to know what it is going to cost me.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am writing to inform you of a fire that has broken out in the basement level of the... No, too formal...
In rural areas there is often as much "fringe" coverage where SMS works but a voice call can't complete as there is "service area". The best you can do now is to text a bunch of your friends with, "crashed in ditch on river rd, ovrtrned, brkn neck, pls call 911," and hope somebody notices.
This kind of 911 service could effectively double mobile 911 coverage in those places. That's quite sufficient a reason to put up with the whiny problems posted above.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How soon before some critical detail, such as where to send the ambulance, gets horribly autocorrected and sends the paramedics to the wrong place?
This would have been useful when my ex was in a completely unstable state after our breakup and threatened to kill herself. No way would a phone call have worked, since she would have heard it and thrown it at the wall.
After a very, very very long night, I finally got a chance to call the cops, and she spent three days in a mental hospital.
Crazy bitch.
User: theres a hijacker on the plane
Cop: Don't you mean "there's"?
Your scenario is absurd. There's no way a cop would be literate enough to recognize grammatical mistakes.
Police?
teh robber is in teh house
I don't know for how long I've wished for the ability to send pictures and video to the police directly. It sure would help them nab a suspect if I was able to send an MMS right to them from the scene of a crime.
Great way for the autorities to collect even more information on everybody, especailly with stupid people flippantly texting everything they see to dispatchers. I'd call the feature worthless, if it wasn't so valutable for the police.
Voice 911 services typically work even if the phone isn't provisioned for billing(I'm sure there are some models that are so sim-locked that they just won't boot or similar; but US GSM handsets with the SIM pulled can usually still make 911 calls if there is a network available, as can CDMA phones that have had whatever the equivalent de-provisioning done to them), so I would assume that 911 texts would also work without charge, and would cut through any text blocking.
No, it likely won't. The reason it works for voice calls is that the standards are established for "non-service initialized phones." There is no equivalent for SMS, and it is doubtful whether there will be any incentive to make this happen for a technology that already is on its way out.
People can text them about all those drunk drivers while they drive down the road.
Location accuracy isn't good enough just to make a voice call and hope for the best without further communication. A case like this was recently documented by the Seattle authorities, where the location was off by four blocks, and the disabled victim was only saved by the fact that the parents were able to call 9-1-1 and give the precise location.
Most deaf and hard of hearing people do not use TTYs anymore. Many now use video and captioned telephone relay services, but 9-1-1 calls through relay services suck, to put it mildly. Call routing doesn't work well for these situations, and there are many documented cases of introducing 5-10 minute delays before the call is finally connected to the emergency responders. Compare that to sub-10 second response times for the majority of voice calls.
support Twitter too?
Timmy: *Cough* Siri, go get help
Siri: Ruff
Dispatcher: What is it girl? Is Timmy hurt?
... unless being in jail is preferable to whatever your situation is right now.
We're expecting an FCC Order on this subject soon. All carriers may have to support something like this in the near future. There is a new version of 9-1-1, called Next Generation 9-1-1, which is just barely starting to get implemented. It supports audio, video and text from a much wider variety of devices. Text is useful in a couple of circumstances: for the deaf and hard of hearing, when you can't make noise (think Virginia Tech) and when texts go through when voice doesn't. This is one example of an interim system that supports text until NG9-1-1 is deployed. Texting for a PSAP is sometimes tricky, because it takes a lot longer to get the same information from a text conversation than from a voice conversation. OTOH, if we redesign the system (as we are doing for NG9-1-1), one call taker can handle more than one text conversation. It doesn't do anything for the reliability of texting, although it's more reliable than handset to handset texting. But then, mobile phone calls aren't reliable either, and over 75% of 9-1-1 calls are typically mobile these days. No one knows yet how this is going to be paid for. There is no mandatory charge, but carriers may increase the fee they collect now. Unlike voice 9-1-1 service, this one will probably be charged at regular rates, and will work only if your service includes texting.
The PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) - the 9-1-1 call center side of this is the tricky part. Upgrades to the PSAP is very hard and expensive to do, so in most cases, these interim systems can't rely on changes to what is there. This one features a web browser interface which, in my opinion, won't work at all, because it doesn't interact with any of the other systems in the PSAP, like the call distributor, the logger, the dispatch system, etc. It does offer SMS to TTY as an option, which I think works. It can deliver text to an NG9-1-1 upgraded PSAP, but those are few and far between right now. Might take us a decade to get most PSAPs upgraded.
Advice for these systems is consistent - don't text if you can call, don't use abbreviations, don't text if you wouldn't call (don't make more work for the call takers).
We actually had this some ago in sweden once, but it failed to catch on for the general population and was discontinued. Technology is not always the answer for everything, though it'll be interesting to see how this will fare this time around.
It's a regulatory agency. Just order it, you doofi.
Halp Im about 2 cr# in 2 a br
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
18 years as a 911 operations admin and 30+ years programming.
Unless Verizon has rebuilt the entire system [read broke existing standards] this will, not if, but when, FAIL.
1) no ID information - calling has a phone number
2) no LOCATION X/Y Lat Lon information - that is the latest FCC of Phase2 911, 100meter-90% and 30meters-60% of time
3) no TCP/IP - can this read sequence packets of out you?
4) no guarantee of delivery NOW - does a lot of good to get text 2 hours later
5) no *off network* stability - this will be gateways on and off the carriers network which have issues
6) NO FUNDING - this is Next Gen 911 [NG911] and it is EXPENSIVE and has no regulation [FCC/Public Utility Commission] on internet like phones do so the providers are pushing this
many, many more issues that indicate a LAW SUIT WAITING TO HAPPEN
[on blackboard of Law 101 - It's not whether you win or lose, but how long you drag it out on billable hours]
Consider that in California if you call 911 from a mobile phone you are routed to a California Highway Patrol call center. After relating the specifics of your situation and location of the emergency situation, they will forward your call to a local law enforcement agency or other emergency services provider. Very different from calling 911 from the land line in your home - if you still have one - where your location is known and pre-identified through the phone system.
I'm just wondering if my bill will go up.
:-)
Yes that is right kids....
Somebody has come up with a new (useful?) way of contacting the emergency services, and the first thing this gimp worries about is if it increase his phone bill.
That's the capitalist mentality for ya !
Me: Hey baby - I want to play put it where it doesn't belong.
911: Please state the nature of your emegency.
Me: I need to shoot my load reallly bad
911: Police are being dispatched to your location.
911 dispatcher: "LOL who is this?"
You actually PAY for SMSing? I don't think any service provider here in my country actually charges for SMSs, they did a while back but not any more.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Where in the world one needs to pay for incoming sms? You need to move to a civilized country asap :)
emergencySMS. Requires registration. Marketed to the deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired, but Mountaineers are recommended to sign up too
Thank you for contacting 911. Standard text message charges may apply from your wireless provider, depending on your text message plan. If you have an unlimited text messaging plan, then there would be no additional charge. 911 is not responsible for any fees charged by your wireless provider. If you wish to continue to send notifications to 911, please reply with CONTINUE. At any time you may discontinue 911 text services by sending STOP to 911.
Dear 911,
Fire ! Fire !!
I hope you come soon.
Cellular voice/data -- existed for a couple decades. Barely-regulated private kleptocracy; every provider sucks in an individual, unique way.
I humbly disagree. While carriers may have some unique versions of their own "suck", there are plenty of methods of suck which they share around (hidden fees, unreasonable limits, and terrible contracts come to mind).
Not as uncommon as you might think. I'd rather not have to talk loud enough for the cellphone operator to hear me whilst hiding in the closet from armed intruders.
Within the EU, there's a requirement that all phones - including public payphones and mobiles - be able to dial 112 for free. Usefully, 112 is also in the GSM standard, so calling 112 will work even in the USA, connecting to 911. Not sure if dialing 911 in Europe would work.
i c suspect in hoodie omg here he comes SMG!
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
While its good to have this as an option as in this case more options are good, calling 911 and leaving the phone off the hook ( prompting a police visit ) is far faster than having to sit there and actually text 'help me'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Deaf people rejoice!
You are correct. The trouble is that the IP-based relay provider has, on one hand, the 'registered user location' on file, which may or may not have been updated by the end user. On the other hand, the relay provider is also required to confirm the /current/ location of the customer before initiating the outbound call to the 9-1-1 center, because the routing to the correct center may only be done once an address is entered into the system.
By the nature of the services, the relay end user may be at any number of locations, or on a mobile handset.
Hearing users placing a call to 9-1-1 don't need to worry about any of this. This is why text-to-911 is a great improvement for the Deaf/HoH.
OMG 911 PLZ HELP...ive fallen n i cant get up!
thanks bro...this looks totally legit
ur ideas r interesting....imma follow u on twitter
911: I put on my robe and wizard hat!
This SMS is a matter of life and death, please you read very carefully.
Having consulted with my colleagues and based on the information gathered from the Nigerian Chambers Of Commerce And Industry, I have the privilege to request your assistance to transfer the sum of $47,500,000.00 (forty seven million, five hundred thousand United States dollars) into your accounts. The above sum resulted from an over-invoiced contract, executed, commissioned and paid for about five years (5) ago by a foreign contractor. This action was however intentional and since then the fund has been in a suspense account at The Central Bank Of Nigeria Apex Bank...
...who have forgotten how to make phone calls because they only use their cell phones for txting.
J