AT&T says it’s the primary provider to deploy location-based routing for 911 calls throughout the nation, a characteristic that permits the corporate to transmit wi-fi emergency calls to the proper name middle primarily based on a tool’s GPS location. As introduced in a press release, AT&T says the characteristic ought to allow the provider to precisely find and route 911 calls inside 50 meters of the place the decision was positioned.

AT&T beforehand routed calls primarily based on the situation of the cell tower that picked up the decision sign, an space that might cowl as much as a 10-mile radius. This means a name middle miles away — or perhaps a entire city over — might obtain your name, probably delaying the time it takes for emergency companies to achieve your exact location. In idea, location-based routing is meant to assist resolve this drawback by connecting callers with the suitable name facilities for the quickest response occasions.

As identified by Fierce Wireless, AT&T stated it gained’t use the characteristic to trace the areas of cellular units and that it’s solely turned on once you place a name to 911. An AT&T spokesperson additional clarified to the outlet that solely the dispatchers on the name middle will obtain your location data. In 2019, a report from Motherboard revealed that cellular carriers have been reselling customers’ location knowledge that in the end wound up on the black market, obtainable for bail bondsmen and bounty hunters to buy.

Location-based routing gained’t be obtainable nationwide to begin. So far, the characteristic has gone stay in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Guam. AT&T says it’ll add help for “additional regions” over the course of the subsequent a number of weeks and expects nationwide help “by the end of June.” In 2020, T-Mobile introduced it was launching location-based routing; nevertheless, it nonetheless hasn’t been made obtainable nationwide.

Last yr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to transmit vertical location (z-axis) information to name facilities with the objective of serving to dispatchers establish the exact location of a caller from inside a multi-story constructing. After missing a deployment deadline set by the FCC, the company is giving carriers till June 2nd, 2022, to certify their deployment.