More States Report Poor 9-1-1 Location Data

Since the California chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) spotlighted the increasingly poor performance of the state’s 911 system to locate cellular 9-1-1 callers, other states have contributed call data that doesn’t necessarily confirm the trend. All the states’ data shows that the number of 911 calls has been steadily increasing, but in some states the percentage of Phase II call location data is remaining about the same, not declining. In other states, including Texas, the percentage of Phase II calls has fallen dramatically starting in mid-2011. The CAL-NENA chapter raised the issue of poor 911 call location reporting by cellular carriers last August, noting that AT&T’s Phase II performance had fallen from 92% in Jan. 2008 to just 31% by Dec. 2012. The chapter presented its findings to the state’s 911 agency hoping to discover why the decline is occurring—operational or technical. They also alerted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the trend. Some in the industry feel that the decline is related to an increasing number of 911 calls made by people inside buildings or other structures. There is also some speculation that carrier network hardware or software upgrades may have caused changes in location reporting accuracy. Check the three state 911 location statistics after the break.

These charts depict data from the named states and submitted directly to the FCC, and posted on their Web site. The charts show Phase Zero calls (no location data), Phase I (the tower location) and Phase II (the caller’s location). In a perfect world, the number of Phase II (red line) would increase according to the general increase in 911 calls made by the public and the increasing number of 911 callers that can be accurately located. The number of Phase I (green line) calls would gradually—and perhaps slowly—decrease as location technology improves, and more calls move into the Phase II category. In these charts, there are a very few Phase O calls (blue line), making it appear as a straight line at the bottom of the charts.

Naturally, a perfect world does not exist. Perhaps the best real-world performance using the current technology is to have the total number of 911 calls increasing, the number of Phase II calls increasing, and the number of Phase I calls increasing at a slower pace than Phase II calls (see the Texas chart below).

The North Carolina data below shows that Phase I and II call volume are both increasing at virtually the same rate, indicating that there has been no improvement in locating 911 callers, just an increase in calls.

The Utah data below shows that Phase I and II call volumes shadowed one another starting in April 2011, and gradually arrived at a 50-50 slit. Starting in early 2013 the number of Phase II calls increased and Phase I calls decreased—a good thing. However, the number of Phase I calls seems to be increasing since April 2013.

The Texas 911 call location data below seems like the best real-world performance: Total 911 calls are increasing, the number of Phase II calls is increasing, and the number of Phase I calls is increasing at a slower pace.