public safety answering points (PSAPs)

June 2013 — The Emergency Access Advisory Committee (EAAC) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report entitled Proposed Procedures for the TTY as a text terminal in legacy 9-1-1 PSAPs without IP Connection, which outlines the use of TTY terminals as a text-to-911 interim solution for Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) without IP connectivity.  The report highlights that TTY may lack some capabilities often used in SMS text messages.  For example, TTY messages have a limited set of characters available for use, are unable to use both upper and lowercase let

March 2013 — The Emergency Access Advisory Committee (EAAC) released a report entitled EAAC Working Group 3 Recommendations on Current 9-1-1 and Next-Generation 9-1-1: Media Communication Line Services Used to Ensure Effective Communication with Callers with Disabilities. The document discusses EAAC recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), U.S Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S.

December 6, 2012—The four largest wireless carriers in the U.S.—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile—have made the commitment to accelerate the deployment of text-to-911 services, starting with major deployments in 2013 and nationwide access available by May 15, 2014. The announcement was made by Julius Genachowski, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, who also stated the FCC’s promise to work with all stakeholders and initiate any additional actions to ensure the accessibility of text-to-911 messaging is reached as soon as possible.