Emergency dispatchers directing first responders in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas will soon have another tool at their disposal, after the Federal Communications Commission voted to require more detailed location data from wireless providers.
The new rules, adopted by the FCC on Friday, will require wireless providers to share the “vertical location” of 80 percent of their emergency callers, within a range of about 10 feet. The idea is to allow dispatchers to determine on which floor of a building an emergency is occuring. National carriers or carriers that operate in major metropolitan areas must provide vertical location data for the 25 most densely-populated metropolitan areas by April 2021; providers must provide vertical data for the 50 most densely populated areas by April 2023.
