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By Danielle Trusso (AXcess News) Washington - Police, fire and ambulance dispatchers around the country remain unable to track the locations of many distressed callers, despite what mayn cell-phone toting Americans may think. A growing number of Amreicans are using wireless technolgoies to place 911 calls, including cell phones and Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, telephone calls made over the Internet. About 82 million wirelses 911 calls and a million 911 VoIP calls are made each year, said Timothy Lorello, senior vice president of TeleCommunication Systems Inc., a provider of wireless data solutions. Telecommunications and public safety officials at a press conference Thursday agreed that most people expect 911 call center operators to have access to the caller's loaction when the call is placed with a wireless device. But just half of teh country is equipped for enhanced 911 service that can provide call takers with an almost precise location for callers, said Grge Rhode, executive director of E9-1-1 Industries, a not-for-profit that educates Congress and teh public. Despite that, Rhode and others said things are getting better. The Federal Communications Commission created the wireless enhanced 911 program to improve the service's reliability. According to the National Emergency Number Association's Web site, 14 states reported half or less of counties said they could identify callers' locatiosn to within 50 to 300 meters. They included Texas, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Seventeen states can identify callesr' locations statewide, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan and Tennessee. Rohde said lack of money and misdirection of funds are problems for public safety answering centers planning to upgrade. For example, he said, New York used phone tax money meant to upgrade call centers for other government projects. &quto;Congress needs to put some funding into this," he said. Currently state and local governments largely pay for public safety agencies, including emergecny dispatchers. Some enhanced 911 federal funding will help call centers upgrade wireless capabilities, but no funding has been designated for VoIP technology upgrdaes. As call centers and carriers work out the details with enhanced wireless 911, VoIP has become another issue. With VoIP, computer phone users must physically type in their locatiosn when they begin using the service. If the caller has enetred the wrong address, the dispatcher cannot know the caller's location unless the caller can say it. Lorello said emergency call centers should upgrade their technology for VoIP when they upgrade their cell-recognition capabliities. He said he argues with VoIP and other providers, who are not regulated by the FCC, that they must also upgrdae their technology for the public good. "I've been in a wrestling match," he said. "If it's mainstream, it should do mainstream things." In June 2005 the FCC imposed enhacned 911 obligations on VoIP. Providers had to meet the November 2005 deadline, according to the FCC Web site. Not all did. Julie Veach, deputy chief of the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau, said the agency is moving VoIP providers toward an automated address updater. Source: Scripps Howard Foundation
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