There is updated information. The four national cellphone providers, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, have signed an agreement with the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) to send “bounce-back messages” to people who try to send a text message to 9-1-1 where text messaging isn’t available. The providers implemented this by the agreed-upon deadline of June 2013.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also adopted regulations applying this requirement to all cellphone providers and over-the-top text messaging providers (send text messages over the data/internet connection and services like Blackberry chat and Iphone chat).
The Agreement between the national cellular providers and NENA also provides for the providers to start delivering text messages to 9-1-1 in areas where PSAPs request to have them delivered. The carriers are to make text-to-911 available by May 2014, and to begin delivering text-to-911 to a 9-1-1 Call Center within 6 months of a request by the Call Center. The text messages can be delivered over NG9-1-1 system where available, otherwise over TDD/TTY interfaces, web portal, dedicated smartphone in PSAP or other method.
The FCC is expected to require all cellular providers and over-the-top providers to make the text-to-911 available on this same schedule. The over-the-top/Internet messaging providers are expected to appeal any such requirements to avoid the precedent of regulation of their services.
A critical task for the 9-1-1 Community is to educate the public that voice phone calls will continue to be the quickest and most efficient and effective way of communicating to a 9-1-1 call-taker the nature and ___location of an emergency, and having First Responders dispatched. Delivery of EMD (“Emergency Medical Dispatch”–a call taker diagnosing an injured or sick person and providing instructions in first-aid to the person calling 9-1-1), would also be slower and less effective by text message than by phone.
Text messaging is critical for speech- and hearing-impaired individuals because use of Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf (TDDs, a kind of teletype device which all 9-1-1 Call Centers are required to have), has decreased 80% in last decade even though our aging population means more people have impaired hearing. The speech- and hearing-impaired community now uses text messaging to communicate within the community and with hearing and speaking people. Text to 9-1-1 is also important for silent call situations where sound of phone call would give away ___location to hostile person, and when people are out of range of cell towers to make voice call.