While I am passionate about wireless public safety communications, the issues around location remain a top-of-mind subject for me. The horrible June 2020 death of Fitz Thomas at the confluence of the Potomac River and Goose Creek remains seared in my memory.
Listening to the 9-1-1 recordings of the desperate Goose Creek witnesses attempting to get aid is tough. But the event is a clear marker demonstrating the vital importance of NG9-1-1 call routing. Without that capability, the calls for help at this incident went to the wrong jurisdiction.
The outstanding post-incident review published by the two jurisdictions, Loudoun County and Montgomery County, provides a clear illustration of the disaster that happens when inbound 9-1-1/112 calls get routed from the cell network to the wrong Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). Without NG9-1-1 Location Based Routing, caller location is based on where the cell tower is, not the calling party.
When a call arrives at the wrong PSAP, the weirdly archaic teleconference method must be used to "ring up" the correct jurisdiction, wait for an answer, introduce the calling jurisdiction, introduce the calling party, and, if everything remains connected, the "wrong" jurisdiction can leave the conference.
Investments in NG9-1-1 are vital for the safety of the community. Nokia just published an informative deep-dive video where Madhavi Ravanan describes the SIP signaling processes providing the magic behind Location-Based Routing of 9-1-1/112 calls on its Nokia Core TV YouTube channel. The deep-dive video describes the SIP signaling processes behind 9-1-1/112 call Location-Based Routing. It is worth a look if you are interested in how cell network infrastructure gets an emergency call to the correct PSAP the first time.