Picture this: You're browsing the aisles of an empty late-night deli when you hear a commotion at the counter. The cashier's being held at gunpoint; the robber hasn't spotted you. You want to call the police, but what if the assailant overhears you? So instead you tap out a quick text message to 911, and within minutes, the bad guy's handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.
Or here's another scenario: Overworked�911 operators are so swamped by meaningless text messages that they barely have time to handle legitimate emergency calls.
Of course, such conjecture is merely academic, because 911 call centers can't handle text messages. Not yet.
The FCC and the U.S. Department of Transportation have been making plans for that, though, Wired reports. Proposals include revamping 911 call centers not only for text messages but for mobile videos, wireless IP devices and even alerts from OnStar-enabled vehicles.
For now, the What's Next project for Next Generation 9-1-1 (or NG9-1-1) is still deep in the planning stages. A comment period opens next month, and a white paper is due in February.
The whole issue of 911 call centers opening the floodgates to text messages is a thorny one, for a variety of reasons.
First, you've got the problem of infrastructure �?? that is, the actual process of upgrading 911 systems to accept text or multimedia messages or other IP-based communication. Would there be federal or state mandates for next-generation 911 upgrades? Who would pay for it all? The answers to those questions are still very much up in the air, as Wired notes.
And say you've got the funding and legislative issues worked out. How would you ensure that 911 operators weren't overloaded by a barrage of random text messages? That was among the topics of a recent NG9-1-1 forum, where transportation and public-safety officials discussed ways to prioritize the potential flood of voice calls, text messages and other info to ensure that first-responders would get only the "actionable information" they needed, when they needed it.
Clearly, allowing mobile users to send text messages to 911 isn't a simple matter of flipping a switch. The potential benefits, however, are compelling ? say, for witnesses to a school shooting who are afraid of being overheard (as a Federal Communications Commission press release quoted by Wired suggests), or during a natural or man-made disaster, when a text message stands a better chance of squeaking through overloaded cellular networks than a voice call would.
What do you think? Should cell users be able to send text messages to 911? Would upgraded 911 centers get better information, or would they be flooded with digital noise?
Let me know what you think in the comments ? or, better yet, tell the Department of Transportation what you think.
Related:
- FCC Updating 911 for the Texting Generation, SRSLY [Wired]
- Next Generation 9-1-1 [Department of Transportation]
- NG9-1-1 What's Next [Transportation Safety Advancement Group]
? Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News.
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