AfterDawn: News

Finally: Carrier to allow texting to 911 emergency services

In a move that has been a long time coming, Verizon has announced it has selected a vendor to help the company deliver users the ability to make texts to 911 emergency services.

With the new ability, those with speaking or hearing disabilities can have the same access to 911 as those without have had for half a century. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski applauded the carrier for the move, and encouraged others to follow suit.



Says Verizon: "Verizon is at the forefront of 911 public-safety innovations, and today's announcement is another step in making SMS-to-911 service available to those who cannot make a voice call to 911."

The service would require that your device can text, which all phones, smart or not, have the ability to do.

Verizon says the service should launch in early 2013.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 5 May 2012 16:20

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• 6 comments

• SomeBozo

  About time to help and assist everyone.!
  

  5.5.2012 18:03 #1

• ROMaster2

  I can justify this for people who genuinely have speaking or hearing disabilities, but not for the 16 year old bas***ds who enjoy texting to text the police instead of calling them.

  5.5.2012 18:29 #2

• SomeBozo

  Originally posted by ROMaster2: I can justify this for people who genuinely have speaking or hearing disabilities, but not for the 16 year old bas***ds who enjoy texting to text the police instead of calling them. Well if they text for fun they will get in just as much trouble as if they called, no real difference...?
  
  

  5.5.2012 19:47 #3

• A5J4DX

  Originally posted by SomeBozo: About time to help and assist everyone.! wish it comes to other countries outside USA
  

  5.5.2012 22:51 #4

• xaznboitx

  i was about to say why people going to have time to text 911if they get kidnapped or something til i read about this going to help people with speaking or hearing disability ... i bet people will abuse this and use it as a prank.
  

  6.5.2012 09:04 #5

• 911tm

  I am excited to see there is so much interest in this arena as I work for a start-up company that is currently releasing its own nation-wide subscription-based 911 text system by July 2012. Why subscribe you ask? Well, first and foremost, using an SMS system is fraught with some fundamental limitations as it was developed in the mid 1980?s. If you are not aware SMS is a transmission system that is sent in the space between phone calls, which means that by their very nature they must be kept concise; no more than 150-160 characters. Any messages that might be more than this limitation are split into multiple "pages" or submissions. SMS is not designed as a smart system, it doesnt recognize the order these pages are sent in although it does use shortest path first to send each page. The problem? each page being sent independent of the other means secondary pages could, in theory and practice, show up first; causing misunderstood communications.
  
  In order to alleviate this and many other issues Internet Business Enterprises LLC has developed 911TM.com; a data gateway system that uses a hybrid geo location system to locate our subscribers in their moment of need. 911TM has developed over time as the brain child of our founder with many years spent working side-by-side with 9-1-1 dispatchers in the IT disciplines. In this time he has come to know many truths about the 9-1-1 system as a whole; for starters, the entire 9-1-1 model is financially flawed and has had inadequate funding to cover current costs let alone future expenses. Many states are currently resorting to regionalizing centers to stretch funds; even though this model was tested and failed in previous attempts with the nation?s land line phone service providers.
  
  Our business model will actually pay participating centers to receive 9-1-1 contacts through our application; to our knowledge, there are no other system providers in that class. We would ask that you consider this a way to help your local 9-1-1 centers generate income so they can revitalize and face their futures on more certain ground. The public web page for our application is 911tm.com. If there are any questions feel free to visit our blog at or you can email me at the Public Relations department at: gfox@inetbe.com

  19.5.2012 19:26 #6