Long run 911 program 'may accept textual content and video messages'

The US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is taking into consideration updating the 911 emergency call program to accept photo, text and video messages. terrence43 car insurance

Roughly 70% of 911 calls are already becoming constructed from mobile telephones, said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

But the 911 program will not at this time "support the communication resources of tomorrow", he additional.

The FCC said the Virginia Tech massacre was an incident when 911 multimedia technological know-how could are actually employed.

Thirty-two persons had been left dead soon after a student opened fire on the Virginia Tech college campus in 2007.

"Some students and witnesses tried to text 911 during that emergency and as we know, those messages certainly not went by and had been certainly not acquired by neighborhood 911 dispatchers," Mr Genachowski said.

But those multimedia messages may possibly soon be answered as a result of broadband-enabled Next Generation 911, Mr Genachowski said, in a speech on the Arlington County Emergency Center in Virginia.

"Even although mobile phones would be the machine of decision for many 911 callers, and we mostly use our phones to text, immediately, you can't text 911. It is time to convey 911 to the digital age."
Complex program

A program that will make it easy for men and women to report crimes with out becoming heard could also be used in situations ranging from kidnappings to robberies.

Mr Genachowski additional that texting can also be a specifically valuable form of communication for men and women who're deaf and other people with a assortment of disabilities.

But modifications towards the complex 911 program are not able to take place overnight, nor with out a vote from the FCC.

The very last substantial change towards the emergency program by the FCC occurred in 2001, when the group needed mobile mobile phone carriers to permit them to pinpoint a caller's geographic place both by GPS and by triangulating a caller's place by cellphone towers.

Established in 1968, the 911 emergency program handles greater than 230m calls per year.