CHICAGO—The future of next-generation, IP-enabled E911 is hampered by a lack of funding and momentum from both the public and private sectors, according to Tuesday’s panel on the subject.

“As a nation, we have to come to grips with public safety and how we fund it,” said Brian Fontes with the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the country’s primary national organization devoted to 911“It’s just a plea in many respects to figure out how the funding is going to work.”

Emergency call centers that handle 911 were built for legacy wireline systems. Public safety officials have struggled to adapt the centers to changes in telecommunications. It remains difficult for call centers to determine the location of calls placed from handsets and the centers are generally unable to handle SMS or MMS content.

As an increasing number of the population cuts their landline cord, the issue of next-generation telecom and compatibility with legacy 911 technology has become increasingly problematic.

“Consumers don’t know where they are [when they call 911], they’re panicked, they want someone else to know that. The information has to be concise and ready for street personnel,” said Mary Boyd, vice president of government and external affairs at Intrado, which provides 911 operations support systems services to incumbent local exchange carriers, competitive local exchange carriers and wireless carriers.

The funding shortage for next-generation E911 services is stifling development in the space. It’s all well and good to develop new, innovative technologies for public safety, but there still has to be customers able to pay for those solutions once they reach market, said Fontes.

Given the high stakes and the promise of next-generation wireless technology, it is no wonder that the panelists expressed some frustration with the patchwork of policy and funding decisions that have led to stagnation in the development of new public safety technologies.

“We can’t let these challenges stand in our way. Public safety deserves to be in control of calls. Today all they can do is react, and that’s what they’ve done for 40 years,” Boyd said.

David Furth with the FCC echoed her statement, saying that the ability to push information from devices to emergency call centers could fundamentally change the way public safety operates. “This is the kind of potential we want to see applied to these programs,” he said.

Furth also emphasized the importance of extending connectivity to unserved and underserved rural areas. “There are two regulatory issues that we’re going to be looking at. The first is to get basic connectivity out to the country because it affects 911 centers and first responders as much as it affects everyone else,” Furth said, adding that the FCC is examining how to configure rural broadband to that it will support the features needed for next-generation 911, both on the consumer side and the public safety side.

Furth emphasized the need for rapid action on the issue, citing the case of two Australian girls who pled for help on Facebook instead of calling emergency services when they found themselves stuck in a storm drain. “[Public safety officials] are dealing with a very quickly changing dynamic... There are a large number of agencies dealing with 911 issues around [wireless communications],” he said.