Enhanced 911 or “E911” solutions are ideal not only for emergency responders, but also for business owners who want to track their employees and resources on the field and ensure their business runs smoothly.

With growing mobile penetration, the scope and applications of emergency services like E911 are growing.

Recently, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA (News - Alert)) have come up with a new specification that will provide SMS subscribers with the ability to send SMS text message to 9-1-1.

The new standard --J-STD-110, Joint ATIS (News - Alert)/TIA Native SMS to 9-1-1 Requirements & Architecture Specification-- positions service providers to have a fully operational text to 9-1-1 solution in place by May 15, 2014, according to ATIS and TIA officials.

The specification allows text to 9-1-1 to be broadly implemented across the United States to get emergency messages to public safety answering points in emergency situations.

“Text messaging is one of consumers’ preferred means of communication and increasingly they are expecting that they can access life-saving emergency services using SMS.  Thus, market demand has helped drive the need for this critical standard,” said ATIS president and CEO Susan M. Miller, in a statement.

Leading mobile service providers including AT&T (News - Alert), Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon are active participants in the J-STD-110 development. 

The four service providers have come voluntarily to support the framework of the 911 solution that supports coarse location to route the text to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), the ability to send a text to the short code “911,” and delivery of a message advising the caller to dial 9-1-1 when texting to 9-1-1 is not available.

The standard supports a flexible and interoperable environment for multiple wireless carrier and public safety network configurations, and defines capabilities necessary to support SMS to 9-1-1.

Some of the capabilities required to support this specification include standardized interfaces from the originating network to the PSAP, obtaining coarse location for routing, handling bounce-back messages, and managing the text message dialog between the originator and PSAP.

According to TIA president Grant Seiffert (News - Alert), the standard will enable life-saving communications between those in situations where voice conversations are not possible. It will also augment the communications possibilities for the deaf and hard of hearing community in a timely fashion, Seiffert added. 

The coalition of ATIS, TIA and their members was actively involved in the FCC’s (News - Alert) Emergency Access Advisory Committee. On March 1, the committee approved a report on interim text messaging to 9-1-1 wherein J-STD-110 was singled out as a non-proprietary solution that can encourage the timely deployment of text to 9-1-1. 

The interim solution will be implemented while the long-term Next Generation 9-1-1 solution is being developed in ATIS and 3GPP for Multimedia Messaging Emergency Services in the next technology generation.

The new ATIS/TIA joint standard will be available via the ATIS Document Center and TIA’s website and will be complimentary through June 2013.