APCO Examines Interim 911 Text Messaging Options

The increasing dependence of the public on text messaging to stay in touch has created pressure to implement 911 text messaging, but that service may not be as popular or as necessary as initially believed. A just-issued White Paper by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) outlines options for handling 911 texting before construction of a Next Generation 911 (NG911) network, and also reveals that one test agency has received just a single 911 text message in two years of operation. The 25-page document acknowledges that Blackhawk County (Iowa) was the first PSAP to receive 911 text messages in June 2009, although only via a single carrier and focused on those with speech and hearing impairments. But after this and other early deployments, APCO notes that public safety stakeholders, “are still faced with the conundrum of trying to identify and implement solutions that are workable on a national scale.”

The paper delves into the technology of text messaging, notes the the lack of location information, but says reliability of delivery is similar to voice calls (99%). In several evaluations of text messaging 911 techniques, APCO’s list of “disadvantages” is always longer than the “advantages,” using experience gained from Blackhawk County and other earlier adopter PSAPs.

The paper reveals that Durham Emergency Communications (NC) has been testing the service since August 2010, and has extensively advertised the feature among the community, which includes Duke University. Despite the publicity, they have received only one 911 text message. Instead of concluding that citizen desire for 911 texting service is non-existant, APCO remarks, “Perhaps the greatest operational lesson…is that we may not be overwhelmed with SMS to 9-1-1 calls.” Ironically, Durham dispatchers test the service twice a day to collect performance statistics, creating 1,460 text messages over two years.

The paper also examines the vulnerabilities of 911 texting, including prank or malicious calls. “The worst-case scenario for any implementation of messaging into a PSAP in an IP-based infrastructure would be the introduction of a virus into the network,” APCO says.

Based on the experience of early adopters, APCO provides some guidance on the human and operational aspects of texting 911, including;

• A text conversation will take longer to process than a voice conversation regarding the same amount of information.
• Unlike TTY/TDD usage, there is currently no “official” guide to abbreviations used in texting. Misinterpretation of abbreviations could lead to longer processing times and/or errors.
• Background noises, tone of voice, and other audio clues are often used by telecommunicators to gain additional knowledge regarding emergency calls. These will be absent in text calls, just as they are now in TDD/TTY.
• Processes to adequately deal with protocol driven interrogation will have to be adapted for use with Next Generation 9-1-1, as will policies for dealing with non-English speaking callers.
• Human friendly interfaces between the systems that receive Next Generation “calls” will need to be developed.

APCO also notes there are issues of message retention and public release policies, agency liability and even employee stress.

“The road ahead still has issues that need to be addressed, issues that will not be resolved over night. However, the course is set and the functionality will be implemented in one form or another,” APCO states.

Download the entire White Paper for more details.