• April 3, 2025

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The Federal Communications Commission has recently proposed improvements to its wireless 911 location accuracy rules, which will reduce emergency response times and ultimately save lives by enabling 911 call centers and first responders to quickly identify the location of people who call 911 from wireless phones.

The Commission requires wireless service providers to deliver location information with all 911 calls that identifies the caller’s horizontal and vertical location within specified accuracy thresholds. While these rules have led to significant improvements in locating 911 callers, public safety authorities have voiced concerns about the precision and format of the vertical location information they receive and the adequacy of the test bed process.

The FCC is proposing measures to address concerns about precision while balancing the needs of industry and promoting technical flexibility and innovation, including seeking comments on:

• Requiring wireless providers to deliver vertical location information to 911 call centers measured in Height Above Ground Level to provide more actionable information to first responders.
• Requiring the industry test bed validate the performance of vertical location technologies in dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural environments.
• Providing non-nationwide wireless providers and certain major public safety organizations expanded access to test bed data and allowing these public safety organizations to challenge test bed validations.
• Ways to increase the number of wireless 911 calls that convey dispatchable location information with the call.
• Improving horizontal location accuracy for wireless 911 calls and location accuracy for text-to-911.

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Sources:

docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-410440A1.pdf