The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO), the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), and the four national wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile) have announced and filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a “Roadmap” to improve location accuracy for indoor and outdoor wireless 911 calls. According to the parties, the Roadmap takes a different approach from the E911 location accuracy rules proposed by the FCC in February by “using indoor technologies to deliver a ‘dispatchable location’ for indoor 9-1-1 calls — meaning that First Responders will obtain the civic address of the calling party, plus additional information such as floor, suite, apartment or other information when needed to adequately identify the location of the calling party.” The carriers committed to achieve this objective by meeting the following milestones based on live wireless 911 call data: 40% of all wireless 911 calls within 24 months, 50% of all wireless 911 calls within 36 months, 75% of all VoLTE wireless 911 calls within 60 months, and 80% of all VoLTE wireless 911 calls within 72 months. The roadmap has generated controversy within the public safety community, and is opposed by a number of public safety organizations as being less aggressive than the rules proposed by the FCC.
