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Credit to Author: Brian Barrett| Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 20:24:12 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Apple has spent <\/span>much of its promotional push behind iOS 12 so far focused on features that range from silently useful, like Safari\u2019s new privacy powers<\/a>, to off-puttingly quirky, like animoji tongue-tracking<\/a>. But on Monday the company detailed an upcoming iPhone upgrade with real-world consequences: It will communicate your exact location to 911 operators when you call, saving valuable time when every second matters.<\/p>\n To do so, Apple has partnered with RapidSOS, a startup that focuses on upgrading the byzantine backends of the nation\u2019s roughly 6,500 emergency call centers. The move won\u2019t improve every call to 911 overnight, but it\u2019s as big a step as anyone has taken so far to fix a problem decades in the making.<\/p>\n To understand the impact of the Apple and RapidSOS solution, it helps to know the roots of the problem. For that, you need to go back to the advent of the emergency call system, which dates back to the late 1960s.<\/p>\n It seems reasonable to spare you the full history of telecom-based emergency response solutions. The upshot, though, is this: Everything about the infrastructure that underpins 911 was built for landlines. The data associated with incoming calls is limited to 512 bytes, which RapidSOS CEO Michael Martin notes is less than what traveled along the first transatlantic cable.<\/p>\n 'The sooner you get there the greater the probability of providing potentially life-saving services.'<\/p>\n Brian Fontes, National Emergency Number Association<\/p>\n In other words, there\u2019s typically no room for any information beyond someone\u2019s voice. For years, that was good enough, in large part because call centers could tap into the local phone company\u2019s billing database to identify the address associated with the incoming number. But with more than 80 percent of incoming emergency calls originating from a cell phone in some areas, according to the National Emergency Number Association, that\u2019s no longer especially useful. Instead, operators are often left with the tricky job of discerning not just what\u2019s wrong but where, in the course of an often panicked conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have 240 million 911 calls a year, and we still struggle to locate them. We don\u2019t even get the caller\u2019s name, typically,\u201d says Martin, referring to the call center\u2019s plight.<\/p>\n Knowing a distressed caller\u2019s exact location has the obvious benefit of being able to dispatch the right response team quickly and efficiently. But it also helps save time before the call gets connected in the first place. If you\u2019re in Washington, DC, say, and your carrier thinks you\u2019re in Arlington, Virginia, your call could go to the wrong state and have to be rerouted.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time you have to reroute a call, you lose time and you lose those seconds that count,\u201d says NENA CEO Brian Fontes. \u201cIt\u2019s well known that if you can reach someone who is in need, the sooner you get there the greater the probability of providing potentially life-saving services.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the Federal Communications Commission has estimated that improving location services for 911 could save more than 10,000 lives annually<\/a>. Which means the better question might be: What took so long?<\/p>\n The push for better emergency call location services dates back to the late 90s, when the FCC instructed carriers to provide location data at an accuracy of between 50 and 300 meters; in 2015, it stepped up the requirement to 50-meter accuracy for 80 percent of all indoor calls by 2020.<\/p>\n That onus would logically fall on the carriers; they are, after all, who the FCC directs its requirements toward. But whether through a lack of tools or motivation, or both, they\u2019ve been slow to advance the cause. Carriers typically rely on triangulating cell towers and a smartphone\u2019s GPS signal, but that method can only get you so far (or so close, as the case may be), especially in crowded or indoor areas.<\/p>\n 'It's just very challenging to get it all the way through.'<\/p>\n Michael Martin, RapidSOS<\/p>\n Apple and Google, the world\u2019s two dominant mobile software providers, have gotten involved only in the last few years. In 2015, Apple introduced its Hybridized Emergency Location technology, which combines on-device data with cell tower information to more precisely estimate a 911 caller\u2019s location. Google, too, has a supplemental service called Android Emergency Location Services that achieves the same basic result. ELS is currently available in 15 countries around the world.<\/p>\n The patchwork nature of the US emergency call center system, though, has made it difficult for HELO and ELS to gain traction on their own.<\/p>\n \u201cApple attempted to push HELO through the legacy system, and it\u2019s just very challenging to get it all the way through,\u201d says RapidSOS\u2019s Martin, who notes that the US's 6,500 call centers run more than 25,000 different software systems, and work with more than 70,000 first-responder agencies. \u201cIt\u2019s an enormous fragmentation of different systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of going it alone, Apple decided to route its HELO efforts through RapidSOS, which has already partnered with major public safety software companies like Motorola and Raytheon. A simple software update, Martin says, provides a secure IT data link between your device and those systems, which allows for rich information to pass through. In this case, that means location, but it can also account for even more; in a partnership with Uber, for instance, RapidSOS enables the automatic sharing of the make, model, and color of a vehicle. The information is end-to-end encrypted, shared only during a live 911 call, and only with the call center.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s one of the major things we\u2019re pushing with Apple, is driving every 911 operator in the country to install this,\u201d says Martin, who notes that smaller or more rural call centers may not even know that RapidSOS exists, and that it\u2019s free for them to install. (RapidSOS makes its money from partners calls originate from, like Apple and Uber.)<\/p>\n