7 ms·

A survey of 911 dispatchers reveals the cost of bad technology

40 points by Libertatea 13y ago

modeless 13y ago
Is anyone working on something better than signal strength triangulation for cell tower based positioning? It seems crazy to me that we can get accuracy of a few meters using weak signals from satellites in space, while the strong signals from nearby cell towers give you only kilometer level accuracy.
- wlesieutre 13y ago
  Generally speaking, cell phones today already know where they are with pretty good accuracy. So the most obvious solution would be to have a standardized system for a phone to send its GPS/wifi based position to the 911 center. In some cases the caller is not able to communicate verbally because they're choking, hiding in the closet from an intruder, or any number of other reasons. In those situations, being able to reach 911 by SMS would allow them to give a location. You can't yet, but it's being worked on. http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911 http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911
  - taejo 13y ago
    If you're in a closet, your phone probably can't get a GPS signal, unfortunately.
    - wlesieutre 13y ago
      Whatever positioning source it's using, my phone can place me within around 20 ft while it's in my closet. Not perfect, but about the same accuracy as anywhere else in my apartment. But yeah, if you're in a city with huge buildings blocking GPS signals and 50 floors of little apartments stacked on top of each other, then a rough street address may not help enough anyway.
- Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 13y ago
  Google uses a combination of GPS and nearby wifi signals to figure out where you are, and it is astonishingly effective. I enabled location history for a day and could see data points for different rooms in my apartment. If any random app can access that data, I wonder why they don't integrate it with the E911 feature that's already built into android.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > Is anyone working on something better than signal strength triangulation for cell tower based positioning? First, cell towers do better than mere signal strength triangulation -- they use signal arrival time and round-trip time to get a pretty good fix on a phone's location. Not nearly as good as GPS, but reasonably good. Second, smartphones have GPS receivers, and some of those allow the GPS position to accompany the outgoing call. That's much better, but it sometimes requires that the call be placed outdoors. I think in the future, all cell phones will have GPS, and a few other improvements will come along to allow much better positioning.
  - modeless 13y ago
    >they use signal arrival time and round-trip time Do you have a source for this? As far as I know this is not true. They use signal strength and knowledge of cell tower antenna locations, but not time of flight of the radio signal, as GPS does.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      Just a handful, and most of them are pretty vague: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking Quote: "Using the SIM in GSM and UMTS handsets, it is possible to obtain raw radio measurements from the handset.[6][7] The measurements that are available can include the serving Cell ID, round-trip time, and signal strength. " http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/06/01/cell-tower-triangulation-how-it-works/ http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/06/01/cell-tower-tri... Quote: "Within each sector, the tower can make a measurement of how far away the transmitting cell phone is. This is done by measuring signal strength and the round-trip signal time." Neither of the above references is very specific, but I recently read a paper that went into great detail, and showed graphs of the areas with the greatest accuracy, all based on arrival time measurements. Some of it may have been speculative based on future improvements in the system. But I can't locate that specific paper. Here's another reference: http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-push-for-tracking-cell-phones/ http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-push-for-tracking-cell-phones/ Quote: "T-Mobile, for instance, uses a GSM technology called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, or U-TDOA, which calculates a position based on precisely how long it takes signals to reach towers. A company called TruePosition, which provides U-TDOA services to T-Mobile, boasts of "accuracy to under 50 meters" that's available "for start-of-call, midcall, or when idle."" You know, now that I've read these articles, it sounds more like a future technology than something that's in place right now, except for a few networks.
nikomen 13y ago
Wouldn't a smart phone enable GPS automatically to try to get a more accurate location when 911 is dialed? Obviously this doesn't help with phones that have no GPS, but I would think with the amount of smart phones in use today it wouldn't be a big of an issue.
neil1 13y ago
Obviously, the problem is not the technology, it's an antiquated government. A government that is run by bureaucrats, that don't know how to properly leverage technology, especially satellite technology.
- mmagin 13y ago
  I think it would also be reasonable to place some blame on telephone company monopolies/duopolies who are in a comfortable, profitable place and resistant to change.
  - neil1 13y ago
    Exactly, but I think one of the problems is that since government is filled with bureaucrats, who don't understand how easy it is to implement this, they instead listen to the phone company lobbyists, who says "this will be incredibly expensive and hard to enable"
TrainedMonkey 13y ago
While this does describe a real problem that we want to address, article reads like surveillance propaganda. I think it reads that way because of strong implication that cell phone technology is bad because it does not allow authorities to obtain quick geolocation fix on a cell phone.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > ... surveillance propaganda. I think it reads that way because of strong implication that cell phone technology is bad because it does not allow authorities to obtain quick geolocation fix on a cell phone. That may be, but not being able to locate people in an emergency is a legitimate problem, and it's happening because people are ditching their landlines (which did have known locations). I live on the shore of Puget Sound in Washington State, right by the water. This means my cell phone is much more likely to connect with a cell tower on the opposite shore -- and people on the opposite bank get connected to cell towers on this side. This means depending on a cell tower for location is totally misleading for all these people. The only people who can be automatically located are those who (a) have smartphones with built-in GPS, (b) the GPS location is set to be included with each call, and (c) are outdoors when they make the call. It's a mess, and conspiracy theories aside, it needs to be fixed.
  - bitJericho 13y ago
    The cell phone could be programmed to do all this on a 911 call (well, short of stepping outside). I think that's actually a pretty reasonable idea.
- afarrell 13y ago
  Someone who is calling 911 (or 999) should have no expectation of privacy from the government as to their location.
  - BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
    To my knowledge, there is no special back channel through which your cell phone will transmit GPS data to the dispatcher when you place a 911 call. The telco will always have access to cell tower triangulation data, which can be shared with 911 services (or law enforcement), but in general they are not being fed GPS or WiFi geolocation from your smartphone OS's location service (unless I just don't know about it). To get that kind of data from your OS to a 911 dispatcher simply by placing a call would be to concede the ability for that kind of data to be leaked over telephony at all, or otherwise constantly uploaded to telcos/authorities.
dpatrick86 13y ago
Serious question... why can't I SMS 911? This article focuses on geolocation data... which is fine. But what about cases where a person is unable to speak verbally because of either physical impairment, or because they are afraid or otherwise unable to do so? This would be so easy to implement, can it even really be said to be a technology problem?
- wlesieutre 13y ago
  > In an agreement with NENA and APCO, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have voluntarily committed to provide text-to-911 service by May 15, 2014 in all areas served by their networks where a 911 call center is prepared to receive texts. http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911 http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911
- Rynant 13y ago
  Implementing SMS for 911 is not simple. First of all, many 911 call centers (PSAPs) still use analog equipment [1] For those PSAPs that do have NG911 equipment, managing an SMS "call" is tricky because SMS messages are not sent on a persistent connection. Each message requires routing through the wireless network to a selective router which then routes the call to a PSAP, and the PSAP routes the message to a call taker. So somehow subsequent messages need to be able to find their way to the same call taker that handled the first message. - How do all of the routing points know what "call" each message belongs to? - How do they know when the call ends? - What happens when the caller's location changes and the wireless network routes through a new selective router? - What if a PSAP is busy or offline? Unlike normal SMS, messages need to be re-routed. - 911 calls need to be recorded. Who is responsible for storing the SMS conversations? Sometimes PSAPs are required by a state to record conversations. If the SMS solution is a web-hosted application, state laws may need amending to allow the application provider to record the SMS conversation. The wireless network, selective router, and PSAP equipment may each be managed by a different entity, so it requires new laws, standards and equipment to coordinate a 911 SMS conversation correctly compared to normal SMS calls where the number that is being sent to maps to a single subscriber. [1] http://www.911.gov/ng911_law/whatisng911.html http://www.911.gov/ng911_law/whatisng911.html
rdl 13y ago
I wish there were a premium 911 smartphone application for the public or maybe even somewhat-trained members of the public. Rather than a single number to call, show me the resources available in my local area, in realtime -- distances to a level I/II trauma facility, hazmat, fire, police, tactical, etc. (some of this might be restricted for security reasons, but "infinite" resources like a police hq or hospital wouldn't be). I specifically want to be able to report a traffic accident in e.g. Pleasanton and get connected directly to CHP, rather than going through local PD first. Voice is great, but I'd also like to get updates on ETA, and the ability to send more accurate information to the first responders than goes through 911 dispatchers -- specifically, the person on scene should see exactly what is being sent to the first responders to check it for accuracy. (maybe not so much in security/police, but in fire/medical) Sending photos and essentially a map could be really helpful. The easiest commercial market is probably regulated-industry safety professionals (power plants, chemical plants, etc.) which have unique needs. One option might be deploying it within radius of these facilities to the general public so they can get updates on things like gas releases or accidents. The longer the travel time between first responders and victims, the more useful this would be. In Palo Alto, you're going to get police/fire/medical quite quickly. In a poor city like Detroit, calls get triaged, and in actually remote areas, even more so -- yet, people often do have smartphones and at least 3G now. It would also be a big win in markets where private ambulances and other options exist (i.e. most of Asia); knowing that you can get a private ambulance for $30, or take a taxi for $10, or wait 2h for state services, would be really useful.
- monkmartinez 13y ago
  Resources. My city has a massive problem with retention of IT folk and I suspect this to be the case in lots of other municipalities. Your ideas are awesome, but we can't even manage to get laptops that sit next to each other to communicate and/or share data. There is no comprehensive suite of Fire/EMS software and hardware that I am aware of. It is 100% piece meal and the people making the decisions don't really understand technology.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Right -- the solution (I think) would be to sell this as a packaged service, initially to the well-funded "house fire departments" at industrial facilities, and then maybe to places like airport departments, and to geographic agencies with funding. Minimizing the local customizations and local IT support. (I am pretty familiar with the nuclear plant systems, and with military and military airfield systems, but I think they're fairly similar to most profitable/regulated/compliant industrial sites like major refineries.) Essentially drchrono or practice fusion for EMS/fire/police/etc -- less featureful and customizable than the existing solutions, but vastly easier to deploy.
viraptor 13y ago
They talk a lot about cell phones, but another source with no location is a VoIP call. In some areas the operators are forced to collect location info and pass it on to local emergency services in case they are queried, but in practice... who has ever updated that entry? This is the case for the UK's ITSPs at least. You can't easily query those location details quickly.
socrates1998 13y ago
This seems like a problem that really shouldn't be a problem. How can the cell companies share data with the NSA against the wishes of their customers, yet not share information with 911 which is clearly in the best interests of the customer? I just don't get it. Do corporations really don't give a shit about whether people live and die?
frik 13y ago
It should be the other way! Smartphones should have an emergency button. Pressing the button should automatically call 911 (or 112) and speaking using a Text-To-Speech TTS software (Siri, etc.) the name of the phone owner and the GPS coordinate, street address, etc. This technology is already built in e.g. Ford cars (using Nuance/Microsoft speech technology, using automatic Bluetooth to call via the phone) - at the same time as the airbag goes off the car calls the emergency number and speaks. And there are a number of (smart)phones that have an inbuilt emergency button that calls or SMS a predefined (but editable) number (like relatives).
- jessriedel 13y ago
  You don't need a special emergency button. It wouldn't be hard for the phone to provide that info to emergency dispatchers whenever 911 was dialed at the same time as it was connection the call.
  - coryking 13y ago
    Lets say you just had a stroke or something. I honestly can't imagine how hard it would be to dial 911 on a modern touch screen phone if you are mentally or physically incapacitated. Seriously, it it kind of scares the crap out of me visualizing how I'd dial for an emergency if shit hit the fan and for whatever reason I wasn't my normal self.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      The number of people every year who are so incapacitated that they can't dial 911 yet are just capacitated enough to find the red emergency button on their home screen (after entering their unlock password) can be approximated as zero. And if you have one of those "emergency call bypass" features for your lock screen...well, you're already done.
- Zikes 13y ago
  I think you're on to something there. Theoretically the auto-dial button wouldn't be necessary because the phone knows what number it's calling, so no matter how you connect with emergency services it could know to initiate the procedure for providing location information.
monkmartinez 13y ago
First responder here. I am a professional Firefighter/EMT in Arizona. Its not just 911 calls from cell phones, its the whole stack. This will hopefully illustrate the problems we have; Last night we were dispatched to an MVA (accident) with injuries. The 911 call came in from a passer by on a cell phone, but gave the wrong address. A police officer near by, responded as well. When the officer arrived, he told Dispatch that the accident was on XYZ st. Dispatch corrected our address on our MDT (the computer in the Engine) and updated over the radio. We drove to the intersection, but couldn't find the accident. I am the driver of the engine, so I ask my Captain if we should just head south a litter further to gain some elevation and look for lights. This is all while making appropriate radio transmissions. We drive a little further south up a small hill and find the Accident. The accident is on the street the officer said it was on. Dispatch didn't have an updated map that reflected the connection of two streets and the streets name change. They had dispatched us to the old intersection. We were delayed about 4 minutes and the injuries were not serious, thankfully. However, this is pretty common. We have two laptops on every truck. We have a brand new digital radio system. We have a year old CAD (dispatch) software package. We use electronic patient reporting and transmit full telemetries (patient reports) via a shitty web app. Our laptops do not cross pollenate (share data). Our radio system doesn't work with police unless we coordinate beforehand or activate the MMRS system which is reserved for homeland security type events. The radio system has all kinds of other problems, it is fully software defined radio. Our patient data from the EKG monitors do not talk to the EPCR (electronic patient...) software. Our EPCR data does not cross pollenate with the shitty web app for transmission to the hospitals. CAD; Maps are a cluster f* and its too expensive to use Google maps apparently. The CAD software has all kinds of bugs for data extraction Ie. calls are doubled, missing and more. Believe it or not we have Fire/EMS departments from around the country visiting us as we are very, very advanced in terms of technology in the Fire/EMS service. I've made two android apps for our department to use, an easy SOP reader and a Fire pump calculator. I am actively trying to come up with solutions to fix our problems via MORE! software...haha
- Zikes 13y ago
  I'd be interested to know exactly why Google Maps would be too expensive. Is it the licensing of the maps from Google that costs too much, or the development of new software to use the new map source data? In the case of the former, I wonder if OpenStreetMap is any better than CAD Maps' existing map source.
upofadown 13y ago
All phones should have the ability to send your location to the other end of any call/SMS at the press of a button. There should also be no way a remote entity can trigger this... Then the feature would be useful in day to day life and would be well supported. We have to stop treating emergency communications as something special. The actual problem here is a lack of proper standards.
chiph 13y ago
The problem I've had with reporting accidents is that the phone isn't loud enough to be heard over other traffic. So I can't hear the 911 dispatcher. My guess is they're being volume-limited to protect people's hearing, but in a high ambient-noise environment (like, standing beside an interstate) it really needs to be louder.
preetnation 13y ago
CEO of a company working on this problem. Honestly I'm enthused to hear the initiative, critical thinking, and passion behind your ideas here. I personally agree with many of you that the first problem here IS NOT technology. It isn't that we don't have the technology, it is that the technology isn't being properly applied nor has been there been a willingness to adopt it. A big reason for this is that the people making the decisions of what to use and provide (telcos and CAD companies) are not the people who face the consequences when response arrives too slowly (regular people like you and me). As monkmartinez said, this is a full-stack issue. Here's the full workflow assuming what is state-of-the-art in a 911 center. You need help. Bring out your smartphone and press 'Emergency' if you have iOS. Tap '9' '1' '1' and dial. Call rings once, maybe twice. Depending on the area, this could be a long time. Call is routed to nearest PSAP They pick up and say '9-1-1 emergency.' You say something about what's going on. Their first question, "Where are you located?" Most often, you don't exactly know. so if you were in SF, "I'm in SOMA, near the ballpark." They want more detail, cause they want to avoid what happened with monkmartinez below. "Sir, can you name cross-streets?" Hopefully you know. "3rd and brannan". Now they have something they can use to dispatch responders. If you don't know, they will keep asking for more specificity. At the same time, they are using their console (which looks like it was built in Fortran) to manually refresh to try and get your coordinates. This takes anywhere from 45 seconds to 6 minutes, the whole time you have to be on the call without hanging up. Let's say they get the coordinates. The accuracy can be anywhere from 150 meters to 4000meters. Also, they come in as RAW coordinates (37.7756, -122.4193). They then write these coordinates on paper, go to Google Maps on a separate console and type them in. THEN they have an address that they can dispatch responders to. It is insane. There is so much room to improve this. 9-1-1 is a public service that people depend as part of the social fabric that enables our lives. It is crazy to me that this is such a problem, and I know that it is one that has to be fixed. We think that fixing this will definitively make the world a better place and enable many people to live better lives. If you want to know more about our company and what we are working on: angel.co/bluelight-1 or email preet@getbluelight.com
- monkmartinez 13y ago
  The real problem is the diversity in hardware and software from one district or department to the next. I live and breathe this stuff everyday and have given it some serious consideration. I think that it is high time a 911 or emergency protocol was developed. A network level interface standard that would enable data sharing across the board. The other problem is $$$... there isn't much money to spend on this at the municipal level right now. I don't think it will be like this forever, but it is certainly a problem right now. Edit: Another issue is the people making the purchasing decisions on the public safety side do NOT understand technology. The men and women who are Chiefs or Directors were not born into technology. They are "old school" firefighters/paramedics and with that mindset comes a lot of baggage. Most of them are downright scared of technology. This is rapidly changing as the demographics of the fire/ems service are in total flux. Baby boomers are retiring because the job is physically demanding and your body wears out. Newer guys/gals like myself (9 years) embrace tech and are active to find ways to leverage it. I have lots of ideas that I am working on for Android and the fire/ems service, but are mostly related to education, reference, promotional exams and such Ie. one man projects. These big problems are complex beasts that would require me to quit driving a fire engine (sometimes, I can't believe I am actually paid to do that) while improving my programming ability full time to gain employment in the software industry... its a conundrum that I've wrestled with for some time.
heygiraffe 13y ago
Perhaps we should interpret this article in this way: The government wants to be able to track everyone, all the time. And here's a justification that will let this idea slip past your defenses. Something to think about.

40 points by Libertatea 13y ago

Is anyone working on something better than signal strength triangulation for cell tower based positioning? It seems crazy to me that we can get accuracy of a few meters using weak signals from satellites in space, while the strong signals from nearby cell towers give you only kilometer level accuracy.

wlesieutre 13y ago
Generally speaking, cell phones today already know where they are with pretty good accuracy. So the most obvious solution would be to have a standardized system for a phone to send its GPS/wifi based position to the 911 center. In some cases the caller is not able to communicate verbally because they're choking, hiding in the closet from an intruder, or any number of other reasons. In those situations, being able to reach 911 by SMS would allow them to give a location. You can't yet, but it's being worked on. http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911 http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911
- taejo 13y ago
  If you're in a closet, your phone probably can't get a GPS signal, unfortunately.
  - wlesieutre 13y ago
    Whatever positioning source it's using, my phone can place me within around 20 ft while it's in my closet. Not perfect, but about the same accuracy as anywhere else in my apartment. But yeah, if you're in a city with huge buildings blocking GPS signals and 50 floors of little apartments stacked on top of each other, then a rough street address may not help enough anyway.
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 13y ago
Google uses a combination of GPS and nearby wifi signals to figure out where you are, and it is astonishingly effective. I enabled location history for a day and could see data points for different rooms in my apartment. If any random app can access that data, I wonder why they don't integrate it with the E911 feature that's already built into android.
lutusp 13y ago
> Is anyone working on something better than signal strength triangulation for cell tower based positioning? First, cell towers do better than mere signal strength triangulation -- they use signal arrival time and round-trip time to get a pretty good fix on a phone's location. Not nearly as good as GPS, but reasonably good. Second, smartphones have GPS receivers, and some of those allow the GPS position to accompany the outgoing call. That's much better, but it sometimes requires that the call be placed outdoors. I think in the future, all cell phones will have GPS, and a few other improvements will come along to allow much better positioning.
- modeless 13y ago
  >they use signal arrival time and round-trip time Do you have a source for this? As far as I know this is not true. They use signal strength and knowledge of cell tower antenna locations, but not time of flight of the radio signal, as GPS does.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    Just a handful, and most of them are pretty vague: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking Quote: "Using the SIM in GSM and UMTS handsets, it is possible to obtain raw radio measurements from the handset.[6][7] The measurements that are available can include the serving Cell ID, round-trip time, and signal strength. " http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/06/01/cell-tower-triangulation-how-it-works/ http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/06/01/cell-tower-tri... Quote: "Within each sector, the tower can make a measurement of how far away the transmitting cell phone is. This is done by measuring signal strength and the round-trip signal time." Neither of the above references is very specific, but I recently read a paper that went into great detail, and showed graphs of the areas with the greatest accuracy, all based on arrival time measurements. Some of it may have been speculative based on future improvements in the system. But I can't locate that specific paper. Here's another reference: http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-push-for-tracking-cell-phones/ http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-push-for-tracking-cell-phones/ Quote: "T-Mobile, for instance, uses a GSM technology called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, or U-TDOA, which calculates a position based on precisely how long it takes signals to reach towers. A company called TruePosition, which provides U-TDOA services to T-Mobile, boasts of "accuracy to under 50 meters" that's available "for start-of-call, midcall, or when idle."" You know, now that I've read these articles, it sounds more like a future technology than something that's in place right now, except for a few networks.

nikomen 13y ago

Wouldn't a smart phone enable GPS automatically to try to get a more accurate location when 911 is dialed? Obviously this doesn't help with phones that have no GPS, but I would think with the amount of smart phones in use today it wouldn't be a big of an issue.

neil1 13y ago

Obviously, the problem is not the technology, it's an antiquated government. A government that is run by bureaucrats, that don't know how to properly leverage technology, especially satellite technology.

mmagin 13y ago
I think it would also be reasonable to place some blame on telephone company monopolies/duopolies who are in a comfortable, profitable place and resistant to change.
- neil1 13y ago
  Exactly, but I think one of the problems is that since government is filled with bureaucrats, who don't understand how easy it is to implement this, they instead listen to the phone company lobbyists, who says "this will be incredibly expensive and hard to enable"

TrainedMonkey 13y ago

While this does describe a real problem that we want to address, article reads like surveillance propaganda. I think it reads that way because of strong implication that cell phone technology is bad because it does not allow authorities to obtain quick geolocation fix on a cell phone.

lutusp 13y ago
> ... surveillance propaganda. I think it reads that way because of strong implication that cell phone technology is bad because it does not allow authorities to obtain quick geolocation fix on a cell phone. That may be, but not being able to locate people in an emergency is a legitimate problem, and it's happening because people are ditching their landlines (which did have known locations). I live on the shore of Puget Sound in Washington State, right by the water. This means my cell phone is much more likely to connect with a cell tower on the opposite shore -- and people on the opposite bank get connected to cell towers on this side. This means depending on a cell tower for location is totally misleading for all these people. The only people who can be automatically located are those who (a) have smartphones with built-in GPS, (b) the GPS location is set to be included with each call, and (c) are outdoors when they make the call. It's a mess, and conspiracy theories aside, it needs to be fixed.
- bitJericho 13y ago
  The cell phone could be programmed to do all this on a 911 call (well, short of stepping outside). I think that's actually a pretty reasonable idea.
afarrell 13y ago
Someone who is calling 911 (or 999) should have no expectation of privacy from the government as to their location.
- BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
  To my knowledge, there is no special back channel through which your cell phone will transmit GPS data to the dispatcher when you place a 911 call. The telco will always have access to cell tower triangulation data, which can be shared with 911 services (or law enforcement), but in general they are not being fed GPS or WiFi geolocation from your smartphone OS's location service (unless I just don't know about it). To get that kind of data from your OS to a 911 dispatcher simply by placing a call would be to concede the ability for that kind of data to be leaked over telephony at all, or otherwise constantly uploaded to telcos/authorities.

dpatrick86 13y ago

Serious question... why can't I SMS 911? This article focuses on geolocation data... which is fine. But what about cases where a person is unable to speak verbally because of either physical impairment, or because they are afraid or otherwise unable to do so? This would be so easy to implement, can it even really be said to be a technology problem?

wlesieutre 13y ago
> In an agreement with NENA and APCO, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have voluntarily committed to provide text-to-911 service by May 15, 2014 in all areas served by their networks where a 911 call center is prepared to receive texts. http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911 http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911
Rynant 13y ago
Implementing SMS for 911 is not simple. First of all, many 911 call centers (PSAPs) still use analog equipment [1] For those PSAPs that do have NG911 equipment, managing an SMS "call" is tricky because SMS messages are not sent on a persistent connection. Each message requires routing through the wireless network to a selective router which then routes the call to a PSAP, and the PSAP routes the message to a call taker. So somehow subsequent messages need to be able to find their way to the same call taker that handled the first message. - How do all of the routing points know what "call" each message belongs to? - How do they know when the call ends? - What happens when the caller's location changes and the wireless network routes through a new selective router? - What if a PSAP is busy or offline? Unlike normal SMS, messages need to be re-routed. - 911 calls need to be recorded. Who is responsible for storing the SMS conversations? Sometimes PSAPs are required by a state to record conversations. If the SMS solution is a web-hosted application, state laws may need amending to allow the application provider to record the SMS conversation. The wireless network, selective router, and PSAP equipment may each be managed by a different entity, so it requires new laws, standards and equipment to coordinate a 911 SMS conversation correctly compared to normal SMS calls where the number that is being sent to maps to a single subscriber. [1] http://www.911.gov/ng911_law/whatisng911.html http://www.911.gov/ng911_law/whatisng911.html

rdl 13y ago

I wish there were a premium 911 smartphone application for the public or maybe even somewhat-trained members of the public. Rather than a single number to call, show me the resources available in my local area, in realtime -- distances to a level I/II trauma facility, hazmat, fire, police, tactical, etc. (some of this might be restricted for security reasons, but "infinite" resources like a police hq or hospital wouldn't be). I specifically want to be able to report a traffic accident in e.g. Pleasanton and get connected directly to CHP, rather than going through local PD first. Voice is great, but I'd also like to get updates on ETA, and the ability to send more accurate information to the first responders than goes through 911 dispatchers -- specifically, the person on scene should see exactly what is being sent to the first responders to check it for accuracy. (maybe not so much in security/police, but in fire/medical) Sending photos and essentially a map could be really helpful. The easiest commercial market is probably regulated-industry safety professionals (power plants, chemical plants, etc.) which have unique needs. One option might be deploying it within radius of these facilities to the general public so they can get updates on things like gas releases or accidents. The longer the travel time between first responders and victims, the more useful this would be. In Palo Alto, you're going to get police/fire/medical quite quickly. In a poor city like Detroit, calls get triaged, and in actually remote areas, even more so -- yet, people often do have smartphones and at least 3G now. It would also be a big win in markets where private ambulances and other options exist (i.e. most of Asia); knowing that you can get a private ambulance for $30, or take a taxi for $10, or wait 2h for state services, would be really useful.

monkmartinez 13y ago
Resources. My city has a massive problem with retention of IT folk and I suspect this to be the case in lots of other municipalities. Your ideas are awesome, but we can't even manage to get laptops that sit next to each other to communicate and/or share data. There is no comprehensive suite of Fire/EMS software and hardware that I am aware of. It is 100% piece meal and the people making the decisions don't really understand technology.
- rdl 13y ago
  Right -- the solution (I think) would be to sell this as a packaged service, initially to the well-funded "house fire departments" at industrial facilities, and then maybe to places like airport departments, and to geographic agencies with funding. Minimizing the local customizations and local IT support. (I am pretty familiar with the nuclear plant systems, and with military and military airfield systems, but I think they're fairly similar to most profitable/regulated/compliant industrial sites like major refineries.) Essentially drchrono or practice fusion for EMS/fire/police/etc -- less featureful and customizable than the existing solutions, but vastly easier to deploy.

viraptor 13y ago

They talk a lot about cell phones, but another source with no location is a VoIP call. In some areas the operators are forced to collect location info and pass it on to local emergency services in case they are queried, but in practice... who has ever updated that entry? This is the case for the UK's ITSPs at least. You can't easily query those location details quickly.

socrates1998 13y ago

This seems like a problem that really shouldn't be a problem. How can the cell companies share data with the NSA against the wishes of their customers, yet not share information with 911 which is clearly in the best interests of the customer? I just don't get it. Do corporations really don't give a shit about whether people live and die?

frik 13y ago

It should be the other way! Smartphones should have an emergency button. Pressing the button should automatically call 911 (or 112) and speaking using a Text-To-Speech TTS software (Siri, etc.) the name of the phone owner and the GPS coordinate, street address, etc. This technology is already built in e.g. Ford cars (using Nuance/Microsoft speech technology, using automatic Bluetooth to call via the phone) - at the same time as the airbag goes off the car calls the emergency number and speaks. And there are a number of (smart)phones that have an inbuilt emergency button that calls or SMS a predefined (but editable) number (like relatives).

jessriedel 13y ago
You don't need a special emergency button. It wouldn't be hard for the phone to provide that info to emergency dispatchers whenever 911 was dialed at the same time as it was connection the call.
- coryking 13y ago
  Lets say you just had a stroke or something. I honestly can't imagine how hard it would be to dial 911 on a modern touch screen phone if you are mentally or physically incapacitated. Seriously, it it kind of scares the crap out of me visualizing how I'd dial for an emergency if shit hit the fan and for whatever reason I wasn't my normal self.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    The number of people every year who are so incapacitated that they can't dial 911 yet are just capacitated enough to find the red emergency button on their home screen (after entering their unlock password) can be approximated as zero. And if you have one of those "emergency call bypass" features for your lock screen...well, you're already done.
Zikes 13y ago
I think you're on to something there. Theoretically the auto-dial button wouldn't be necessary because the phone knows what number it's calling, so no matter how you connect with emergency services it could know to initiate the procedure for providing location information.

monkmartinez 13y ago

First responder here. I am a professional Firefighter/EMT in Arizona. Its not just 911 calls from cell phones, its the whole stack. This will hopefully illustrate the problems we have; Last night we were dispatched to an MVA (accident) with injuries. The 911 call came in from a passer by on a cell phone, but gave the wrong address. A police officer near by, responded as well. When the officer arrived, he told Dispatch that the accident was on XYZ st. Dispatch corrected our address on our MDT (the computer in the Engine) and updated over the radio. We drove to the intersection, but couldn't find the accident. I am the driver of the engine, so I ask my Captain if we should just head south a litter further to gain some elevation and look for lights. This is all while making appropriate radio transmissions. We drive a little further south up a small hill and find the Accident. The accident is on the street the officer said it was on. Dispatch didn't have an updated map that reflected the connection of two streets and the streets name change. They had dispatched us to the old intersection. We were delayed about 4 minutes and the injuries were not serious, thankfully. However, this is pretty common. We have two laptops on every truck. We have a brand new digital radio system. We have a year old CAD (dispatch) software package. We use electronic patient reporting and transmit full telemetries (patient reports) via a shitty web app. Our laptops do not cross pollenate (share data). Our radio system doesn't work with police unless we coordinate beforehand or activate the MMRS system which is reserved for homeland security type events. The radio system has all kinds of other problems, it is fully software defined radio. Our patient data from the EKG monitors do not talk to the EPCR (electronic patient...) software. Our EPCR data does not cross pollenate with the shitty web app for transmission to the hospitals. CAD; Maps are a cluster f* and its too expensive to use Google maps apparently. The CAD software has all kinds of bugs for data extraction Ie. calls are doubled, missing and more. Believe it or not we have Fire/EMS departments from around the country visiting us as we are very, very advanced in terms of technology in the Fire/EMS service. I've made two android apps for our department to use, an easy SOP reader and a Fire pump calculator. I am actively trying to come up with solutions to fix our problems via MORE! software...haha

Zikes 13y ago
I'd be interested to know exactly why Google Maps would be too expensive. Is it the licensing of the maps from Google that costs too much, or the development of new software to use the new map source data? In the case of the former, I wonder if OpenStreetMap is any better than CAD Maps' existing map source.

upofadown 13y ago

All phones should have the ability to send your location to the other end of any call/SMS at the press of a button. There should also be no way a remote entity can trigger this... Then the feature would be useful in day to day life and would be well supported. We have to stop treating emergency communications as something special. The actual problem here is a lack of proper standards.

chiph 13y ago

The problem I've had with reporting accidents is that the phone isn't loud enough to be heard over other traffic. So I can't hear the 911 dispatcher. My guess is they're being volume-limited to protect people's hearing, but in a high ambient-noise environment (like, standing beside an interstate) it really needs to be louder.

preetnation 13y ago

CEO of a company working on this problem. Honestly I'm enthused to hear the initiative, critical thinking, and passion behind your ideas here. I personally agree with many of you that the first problem here IS NOT technology. It isn't that we don't have the technology, it is that the technology isn't being properly applied nor has been there been a willingness to adopt it. A big reason for this is that the people making the decisions of what to use and provide (telcos and CAD companies) are not the people who face the consequences when response arrives too slowly (regular people like you and me). As monkmartinez said, this is a full-stack issue. Here's the full workflow assuming what is state-of-the-art in a 911 center. You need help. Bring out your smartphone and press 'Emergency' if you have iOS. Tap '9' '1' '1' and dial. Call rings once, maybe twice. Depending on the area, this could be a long time. Call is routed to nearest PSAP They pick up and say '9-1-1 emergency.' You say something about what's going on. Their first question, "Where are you located?" Most often, you don't exactly know. so if you were in SF, "I'm in SOMA, near the ballpark." They want more detail, cause they want to avoid what happened with monkmartinez below. "Sir, can you name cross-streets?" Hopefully you know. "3rd and brannan". Now they have something they can use to dispatch responders. If you don't know, they will keep asking for more specificity. At the same time, they are using their console (which looks like it was built in Fortran) to manually refresh to try and get your coordinates. This takes anywhere from 45 seconds to 6 minutes, the whole time you have to be on the call without hanging up. Let's say they get the coordinates. The accuracy can be anywhere from 150 meters to 4000meters. Also, they come in as RAW coordinates (37.7756, -122.4193). They then write these coordinates on paper, go to Google Maps on a separate console and type them in. THEN they have an address that they can dispatch responders to. It is insane. There is so much room to improve this. 9-1-1 is a public service that people depend as part of the social fabric that enables our lives. It is crazy to me that this is such a problem, and I know that it is one that has to be fixed. We think that fixing this will definitively make the world a better place and enable many people to live better lives. If you want to know more about our company and what we are working on: angel.co/bluelight-1 or email preet@getbluelight.com

monkmartinez 13y ago
The real problem is the diversity in hardware and software from one district or department to the next. I live and breathe this stuff everyday and have given it some serious consideration. I think that it is high time a 911 or emergency protocol was developed. A network level interface standard that would enable data sharing across the board. The other problem is $$$... there isn't much money to spend on this at the municipal level right now. I don't think it will be like this forever, but it is certainly a problem right now. Edit: Another issue is the people making the purchasing decisions on the public safety side do NOT understand technology. The men and women who are Chiefs or Directors were not born into technology. They are "old school" firefighters/paramedics and with that mindset comes a lot of baggage. Most of them are downright scared of technology. This is rapidly changing as the demographics of the fire/ems service are in total flux. Baby boomers are retiring because the job is physically demanding and your body wears out. Newer guys/gals like myself (9 years) embrace tech and are active to find ways to leverage it. I have lots of ideas that I am working on for Android and the fire/ems service, but are mostly related to education, reference, promotional exams and such Ie. one man projects. These big problems are complex beasts that would require me to quit driving a fire engine (sometimes, I can't believe I am actually paid to do that) while improving my programming ability full time to gain employment in the software industry... its a conundrum that I've wrestled with for some time.

heygiraffe 13y ago

Perhaps we should interpret this article in this way: The government wants to be able to track everyone, all the time. And here's a justification that will let this idea slip past your defenses. Something to think about.