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Emergency Services Network infrastructures around the world are showing their age, and have been looking to resolve inaccurate mobile location for many years.

In 2018, the European Commission published a supplemental directive to ensure mobile caller location during emergency communications. It stated:

“A caller-location solution based on a hybrid system that continues to provide cell-ID positioning, together with the Wi-Fi and GNSS location information already available on the end-user's mobile phone, would lead to significant benefits in both indoor and outdoor emergency situations”

Source: https://docplayer.net/124222438-Commission-delegated-regulation-eu-of.html

The Federal Communications Commission in the US issued the Ray Baum Act:

“The Commission adopted rules under Section 506 of RAY BAUM’S Act to ensure that “dispatchable location” information is conveyed with 9-1-1 calls so that first responders can more quickly locate the caller. Dispatchable location information includes the street address of the caller and additional information, such as room or floor number, necessary to adequately locate the caller.”

Source: https://www.fcc.gov/911-dispatchable-location

Both Commissions acknowledge the ongoing need for accurate mobile location and what its impact on the Emergency Services would be.

However, still today, the current model for determining a mobile caller’s location is not offering a dispatchable location, and it is hard to understand WHY with all our technology available.

Global pioneer, humanist, architect and futurist Richard Buckminster Fuller got it right when he defined Societal wealth in terms of knowledge, and as the "technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all “growth needs” of life.

Our pursuit of better location accuracy is a journey through technology.

It should be our duty to explore all and any viable solutions in order to come to the best possible outcome…and that is to save lives with a better dispatchable address.