County Makes News: First Texting 911

A single county in Iowa has claimed the distinction of being the first to install gear to accept text messages directly to the 911 emergency number, allowing those in peril to communicate silently, and the county’s deaf and hearing-impaired to quickly communicate with a dispatcher. The Blackhawk County Consolidated Communications Center worked with Intrado, Positron Public Safety and RACOM Corp. to create the text message pathway direct to the dispatchers’ computer screens. The pathway allows dispatchers to quickly type messages back to the texters. News of the new service received considerable play in the national press, as an Intrado press release noted the organizations, “worked collaboratively to support the public safety needs of the nation’s 31 million citizens with speech and hearing impairments who rely upon text messaging as a primary means of communications.” While the press release also contained statements of support from NENA, Iowa’s DHS and Intrado, there is no national–or even state–consensus on communicating with dispatchers using SMS, for either deaf or other callers. It’s also not clear how many persons deaf persons would be enabled by the county’s (pop. 128,000) conversion–there is no census of deaf and hearing-impaired persons. More significantly, the new SMS/911 service is available only to subscribers of i-wireless, a local T-Mobile affiliate, communications is constrained by the 160-character limit of SMS messages, and there is no location capability on the messages. Recognizing the limitations, Intrado’s press release concluded, “It’s important to note that a voice call remains the best way to contact 9-1-1. Texting to 9-1-1 should be limited to use in situations where a voice call is not possible.” Update: The state of Washington issued a statement (pdf) saying “Texting 9-1-1? No way!”