I have been deploying e911 call taking systems for more than 10 years. All the areas that I service have been getting pretty accurate location data on mobile callers since I started.
Initially, the providers send the location of the tower they are on and the triangulation data with the call. A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls, which are usually pretty good.
Sometimes there are issues where a provider will send a call to the wrong PSAP because the users location is unclear. This is usually fixed if the 911 operator rebids the call... it will be routed correctly almost 100% the second time and is generally quicker than a manual attended transfer.
I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't.
All that being said, people with specific risk situations (an elderly parent they care for or a disabled child for example) should call the business line for your local 911 public safety answering point and have them add specific information to the file associated with your number.
> I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't.
That's great that where you are it seems to work well, but it's a big country and Apple is in a much better position to know if meaningful improvements can be made nationwide (and it sounds like they're not going for "pretty good", but for "best possible"). Also, RapidSOS seems to be targeting urban areas where GPS is notoriously spotty.
Thanks for writing. My immediate reaction on reading the story was “isn’t this just E911?”.
It’s a tangent, but I’ve been trying to find the answer to this question for a while, and it seems that you are one of the few people with the expertise to answer it:
Would an MNVO be able to offer a meaningfully different privacy policy to the carrier it is buying wholesale from?
The context is the recent stories of telcos being caught selling location data to cops via AGPS requests for-sale, outside of the E911 system. If, say T-Mobile sold AGPS requests on telephone numbers via an API, could an MNVO on the T-Mobile network protect its customers? Is there a particular part of infrastructure which an MNVO would need to control to ensure this?
I haven't personally had any experience with Twilio, but I have overheard conversations at conferences and from what I understand, a PSAP is lucky to even get a number from Twilio. Most calls end up coming via the national emergency calling center with no ani/ali.
What is your day-to-day GPS? If it's a dedicated GPS device and not a cellphone, that might explain it.
Cellphones have Assisted-GPS where they get satellite orbit information and accurate time from the cellular network, and sometimes can offload computation to it, so they can get faster locks.
Cellular devices can get rough location fixes very quickly because the cell towers cue them with assist data, plus they can download the satellite constellation ephemeris data in advance. Stand-alone GPS receivers are much slower since they lack all of those clues. And if the device was just powered on and hasn't gotten a fix near the current location within the past few hours then they can get really slow. If you take your cell phone out in a canyon somewhere with no cell coverage, turn it off for a few days, and then turn it to get a GPS fix expect it to take a while.
Initially, the providers send the location of the tower they are on and the triangulation data with the call. A couple of seconds later they will send more accurate GPS coordinates for most calls, which are usually pretty good.
Sometimes there are issues where a provider will send a call to the wrong PSAP because the users location is unclear. This is usually fixed if the 911 operator rebids the call... it will be routed correctly almost 100% the second time and is generally quicker than a manual attended transfer.
I am not saying that they couldn't do better, but this article insinuates there is some kind of major problem where there isn't.
All that being said, people with specific risk situations (an elderly parent they care for or a disabled child for example) should call the business line for your local 911 public safety answering point and have them add specific information to the file associated with your number.