It is no wonder that the man on the street has long been hearing about new capabilities concerning emergency 911 services for many years, but so far nothing interesting has happened – yet. Perhaps things are going to change in the near future with this latest announcement, where four of the major wireless carriers in the US (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) has agreed with the 911 Association and the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials International to work as one on standards, procedures and technology deployments which will offer a “seamless introduction” of the tech across the great US of A. Needless to say, a proposal of this Herculean effort has already been submitted to the FCC, so we await with bated breath for word of an approval.
Of course, this is still no guarantee that it will be made available to the masses in the US within 2014, but there would have been far more specific signposts set up by then, including bounce-back notifications by June 30th, 2013, that informs texters whenever the service is not available in their area, with a “commitment” to nationwide rollouts by May 15th 2014.
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