The Federal Communications Commission this week proposed rules that will make it easier to pinpoint your location if you call 911 from a mobile phone.
Ultimately, the upgrades proposed will allow 911 operators to locate not just the building in which you are located, but also the floor.
Existing rules were written in 1996. Though they were updated in 2010, they only required wireless providers to meet accuracy standards related to calls placed outdoors. In the last four years, however, cell phone use has exploded and a large number of 911 calls are being placed via cell phones from inside homes and buildings.
Nearly 73 percent of 911 calls in California, for example, are made from wireless phones, and approximately 80 percent of all smartphone use occurs indoors, the FCC said.
As a result, the FCC is calling on wireless providers to meet location accuracy standards that would allow 911 operators to identify the building from which an indoor caller is located. But they should also provide "vertical location information" so 911 operators can find people who are in large office or apartment buildings.
"This technology is relatively new, but it's already being installed in many handsets for commercial services," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. "The proposals we adopt today seek to leverage that innovation to make sure that information is available to public safety."
In the long term, meanwhile, the FCC wants to be able to drill down even further in order to locate a specific room, office, or apartment. But that would require advanced indoor location technology and increased deployment of in-building communications infrastructure.
Wheeler pointed to the recent shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., where most people were calling from their mobile phones rather than the landlines at their desks. "Another story involved a person whose iPad had been stolen – the location information delivered to the PSAP was off by almost 3 miles, but the information provided using the iPad's location app provided pinpoint accuracy," he said.
Wheeler, stressed, however, that "it takes two to tango." Wireless providers can install the most up-to-date technology, but 911 centers - or Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) - must also do their part.
The FCC's proposal "asks important questions about what steps the FCC can take to encourage PSAPS to continue moving forward, but state and local governments must also step up to ensure that PSAPs have sufficient funding to deploy the necessary technologies and, ultimately, make the migration to NG911."
In a statement, AT&T said it supports the goal of improving 911 location accuracy, but argued that the FCC "has tentatively proposed unrealistic targets for location accuracy indoors [since] no vendor currently has proven technology that can meet the proposed standards."
The move comes several weeks after the FCC called on all text message providers to enable texting to 911 by year's end.