[VOIPSEC] VOIPSA blog: "First 911 Center to support SMS"

[Brian Rosen]

This particular technology, while probably the start of a good idea, is
probably going to set back a good solution for years.  

The problem is that it was developed without the knowledge of, and the
participation of, the mobile operators, who, at the moment, are adamantly
opposed to the whole idea of emergency SMS, despite the obvious appeal to
the public and the PSAPs.

I saw a demo of this particular technology a few months ago.  In the demo,
an SMS received at a service center triggered an immediate SMS reply which
said "what city and state are you located in", and the reply to that
triggered another SMS asking for a street address.  This is because, since
the product was not developed with the carriers, it doesn't touch the
location infrastructure developed for 9-1-1 calls.

The operators are working cooperatively on developing emergency text
messaging solutions for "Next Generation 9-1-1", which is a major program to
move the emergency calling system in North America to an IP network.  This
was a kick in the butt to that cooperative effort.  The operators who saw
the demo were red faced angry.  I fear this will trigger a regulatory
effort, rather than a cooperative effort, to get text messaging to 9-1-1.
Apparently, this is close to a replay of how emergency calling from mobiles
played out.

Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: voipsec-bounces at voipsa.org [mailto:voipsec-bounces at voipsa.org] On
> Behalf Of Shawn Merdinger
> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 4:38 PM
> To: Voipsec
> Subject: [VOIPSEC] VOIPSA blog: "First 911 Center to support SMS"
> 
> fyi
> 
> http://voipsa.org/blog/2009/08/07/first-911-center-to-support-sms/
> 
> cheers,
> --scm
> 
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