The nation’s four largest cellular carriers filed reports with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday saying they have met the deadline to provide a “bounce back” message to consumers who text to the 911 emergency number, and are moving forward to meet a May 2014 deadline to provide full text-to-911 service. The carriers AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all noted that they had voluntarily committed to sending bounce back messages to consumers, notifying them that text-to-911 service was not available, and to dial 911 to make a voice call when reporting an emergency. AT&T said it will begin text-to-911 trials in Tennessee by Oct. 2013, and had already received 11 requests from public safety answering points (PSAP) for the service. Verizon officials said they had selected Telecommunication Services Inc. to deploy text-to-911, and would offer three different flavors of the service: via Web browser, via TTY and directly over IP. The company already provides the service to 11 PSAPs, it reported. Sprint said it intends to make a final vendor selection “in the near future,” and had just finished a 6-month trial with the state of Vermont. T-Mobile said it has been “actively engaged” in preparing for the service, but didn’t mention any specific trials. The CEO of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) called the deadline an “important milestone” on the path to text-to-911 service. Brian Fontes said, “Due to the incremental nature of text-to-9-1-1 deployment, it is essential that the public be made aware of when and where text-to-9-1-1 is available.” Download (pdf) the carriers reports here and view an actual bounce back message after the break.
This bounce back message was received using an iPhone on the AT&T network.
After you press send, there is no immediate response. Instead, it takes about 12-15 seconds for the bounce back message to appear.
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