The FCC's plan to get a next-generation 911 plan in place sounds like a good plan, especially for those of us more accustomed to texting than making voice calls.

In remarks at Arlington County Emergency Center in Virginia today, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that the FCC will initiate a next-generation 911 proceeding next month. That will kick off a public input process on how to transition the current system to the next generation, which will include the ability to text 911.

That he's calling for these improvements to 911 should come as no surprise; it was recommended in the National Broadband Plan. But as the chairman said, it's an important first step. I'm clueless as to why it didn't happen sooner, but the timing of his remarks is good. This Thanksgiving week being a peak travel time, emergency responders will see a spike in 911 calls, particularly in response to traffic incidents. How many of those in need of assistance will try to text 911?

A central theme of the chairman's remarks hinges around the inability of people to use text messaging today to get help in emergencies. Seventy percent of 911 calls come from mobile phones, and there's a whole generation who would much rather text than conduct a voice call. Plus, you have to consider those circumstances where sending a text is more discrete and/or easier than trying to talk to 911 when trapped in a bad situation. He reminded us of the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shootings where some students and witnesses tried to text 911 and those messages never made it through to local 911 dispatchers.

Genachowski also talked about future capabilities like being able to transmit a photo of a car leaving the scene of an armed robbery or enabling emergency calls to be placed by devices instead of humans, like devices that include sensors to detect chemicals or personal medical devices to alert help.

I imagine the texting portion of the plan itself will be a huge undertaking. In October, 4G Americas released a 76-page white paper laying out the limitations of the current text messaging system when it comes to using it in emergencies. It's just not made for it. It's not and never will be a real-time communications service. SMS messages can be delayed, delivered in a different order than the sender intended or lost or discarded. There's no routing in place to get it to the public safety answering point (PSAP) and for that PSAP to get the current location of the person requesting services.

Obviously, that means an entirely new system needs to be put in place. Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas, says the association stands by that white paper and looks forward to learning additional details about the FCC's plan for next-generation 911. The group is all for finding non-voice solutions, and it's got a team working on that. It will be especially helpful for people with disabilities to have a non-voice 911 system, he says. "We are open and happy to work on the future and come up with real solutions," Pearson says.

The preparatory and technical work can get started soon, he says, but he doesn’t want to hazard a guess as to how long it will take to get next-gen systems in place. 

Genachowski himself said that modernizing 911 will take not only time but significant coordination to accomplish. The initiative needs the help of federal, state and local partners, public safety, lawmakers, service providers and equipment manufacturers. Good luck to those in charge of getting all of these constituencies together.

Having lived through the wireless E911 mandate in the 1990s and machinations that took forever and a decade to get that in place, I'm prepared for a long wait when it comes to seeing systems in place to actually and accurately manage non-voice 911 messages. On the plus side, bringing up the topic during this busy travel time of year should remind people that if they're in need of emergency assistance, they need to make a voice call to 911, at least for the foreseeable future.