Someone’s life is on the line. Maybe yours. You call 911 with your cell phone.
Dispatcher: What is your location?
You: I don’t know.
Maybe you are hiking/biking/riding/driving/etc and for whatever reason you do not know your location. How can the first responders find you?
Most people likely *assume* that all 911 call centers have some fancy technology that can pinpoint the location of a caller. Do you really want to bet your life on an *assumption* that might very well be false?
Recently the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the results of an expansive study focused on first responders and communication technology. One of the main results was that 911 dispatchers need “[b]etter location information, for both callers and first responders. On the survey, COMMS participants noted inaccurate or missing location information and the inability of cell phones to locate and track callers as the main information problems they experience.”
From page 6 of https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1286pt1.pdf
I have volunteered to help fix that location problem when people call 911 with a cell phone. This solution works for almost any cell phone, old or new, and whether or not the phone has a calling plan.
Findmesar (https://findmesar.com) is a web page that uses the GPS chip in your phone to display your location coordinates and the equally important accuracy value. The yellow screen displays the coordinate format used by all 911 call centers. Producing this is one of my volunteer projects and part of my way to “pay it forward”.
Findmesar is open source. Anyone that can read code can look at the source code though their browser and confirm there is no evil intent.
Also, it is a Progressive Web App (PWA or ‘web app’). This means it can be installed on iOS and Android phones and will work offline. If you have a weak cell connection you might not be able to make a call but you can still send a text. You can use Findmesar to get your coordinates and accuracy value and then include that critical information in your text message.
Findmesar is not available in any app store. The only way to install it for offline use is to open it and tap the “Tips” button. Scroll down to the installation instructions.
Finally, a few years ago I did a deep dive into documents online at the FCC. Here is a report I produced documenting several reasons why it is a huge mistake to *assume* that 911 call centers can magically pinpoint your location when you call.
https://findmesar.com/p/pdf/reasons_why_911_cannot_find_cell_phones.pdf
Joseph Elfelt
Redmond, WA
https://mappingsupport.com