Text-to-9-1-1

Text-to-911 is a technology that enables emergency call takers to receive text messages.[1] Its use is encouraged for the hearing impaired and in situations when it is too dangerous to call.[2] As of May 2014, all four major carriers in the United States offered text-to-911.[3] However, as of October 2018, only approximately 1,600 of more than 6,000 emergency call centers were setup to receive texts.[4]

Adoption

The FCC maintains a registry of areas supporting text-to-911. All carriers are required to send bounce-back messages to inform the sender that the message could not be received if text-to-911 is not supported by the local call center.[5]

Statewide Support

The National Association of the Deaf provides a map of states providing text-to-911.[10]

Challenges

Call centers are usually funded by both state and federal funding.[4] Limited funding and outdated technology have slowed the adoption of text-to-911.[4] Voice-based calls are still preferred and considered the more efficient form of communication.[1] Many cities are concerned about overuse of texting, which may slow response times.[2] Texts to 911 are not prioritized so they may be slow to be delivered.[5]

History

In August 2009, Waterloo, Iowa was the first county to begin receiving texts to 911.[11]

gollark: If the probability of false positives is low relative to the number of possible keys, it's probably fine™.
gollark: I don't think you can *in general*, but you'll probably know in some cases what the content might be. Lots of network protocols and such include checksums and headers and defined formats, which can be validated, and English text could be detected.
gollark: But having access to several orders of magnitude of computing power than exists on Earth, and quantum computers (which can break the hard problems involved in all widely used asymmetric stuff) would.
gollark: Like how in theory on arbitrarily big numbers the fastest way to do multiplication is with some insane thing involving lots of Fourier transforms, but on averagely sized numbers it isn't very helpful.
gollark: It's entirely possible that the P = NP thing could be entirely irrelevant to breaking encryption, actually, as it might not provide a faster/more computationally efficient algorithm for key sizes which are in use.

See also

References
  1. Tsukayama, Hayley. "What you need to know about texting 911". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  2. "Too dangerous to talk? Some cities explore 911 texting". AP NEWS. 2016-07-05. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  3. "U.S.' Text-To-911 Service Goes Live, But You Probably Can't Use It Yet". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  4. "Why is it so hard to text 911?". AP NEWS. 2018-10-31. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  5. "Text Messaging 911 Takes Effect: What You Need to Know". ABC News. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  6. "Text to 911: How Often It's Being Used". NBC Connecticut. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  7. Staff (2018-06-03). "After 4 years, Indiana embraces text-to-911 in emergencies". WISH-TV | Indianapolis News | Indiana Weather | Indiana Traffic. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  8. KWQC. "Text 911 now available in Iowa". www.kwqc.com. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  9. "Text-to-911 Available Statewide in Minnesota". www.govtech.com. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  10. "National Association of the Deaf - NAD". www.nad.org. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  11. Svensson, Peter (2009-08-05). "Iowa 911 center is first to accept text messages". msnbc.com. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
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