The District of Columbia wants to relieve an “overtaxed” 911 system with a public campaign urging residents that they use the number only for emergencies, the Office of Unified Communications said this week. Of 1.12 million 911 calls that OUC handled during fiscal year 2024, the office estimated that nearly one-fourth weren’t emergencies. “Our goal is to provide quick and accurate emergency response to all D.C. residents and visitors,” said OUC Director Heather McGaffin. “In order to achieve this goal, we need to reserve the emergency system for emergencies.” Washington’s 911 center has faced much criticism from the D.C. Council and others for reported errors, including getting addresses wrong and delaying answering calls and sending help (see 2410230034).

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) signed a bill updating the state’s 911 law Monday. The legislature passed the bill (HB-1304) last week. Legislators sought to modernize the law by setting rules for next-generation 911 and requiring implementation plans (see 2411140035).

Facing a growing problem of telecom network vandalism and theft, industry groups are calling for updated state laws, including harsher criminal penalties, as deterrents. In a meeting Tuesday at Verizon facilities in Texas with law enforcement representatives, telecom industry officials repeatedly raised the specter of 911 and telehealth service disruptions.

A bill updating Pennsylvania’s 911 law passed the legislature and headed to the governor’s desk this week. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 48-0, approving HB-1304; the House voted 180-21 to concur with the other chamber’s amendments. HB-1304 seeks to modernize the law by setting rules for next-generation 911 and requiring implementation plans, said a Senate fiscal note. Among other changes, the bill would create an “interim distribution formula” for disbursing funding, while directing the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency to create a permanent mechanism.

The GOP seemed poised to sweep state commission elections Tuesday, based on unofficial results Wednesday. All the races were in states that went red for President-elect Donald Trump and mostly for commissions that the GOP already dominated. It appeared that Democrats would lose their lone seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) and miss a chance at flipping the Louisiana Public Service Commission blue.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials warned that dispatchable location of wireless calls to 911 may not happen. APCO representatives met with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “The promise of dispatchable location has substantially faded since it was heralded by the industry and identified as the gold standard for public safety” in an FCC order “nearly 10 years ago,” said a filing last week in docket 07-114. “While wireless carriers may be delivering dispatchable locations for a small number of wireless 9-1-1 calls, the methods being used and whether/how any testing has been conducted are unknown,” APCO said. There is also “a lack of uniformity among the reports produced by the carriers, which makes it difficult to compare and evaluate their efforts.”

District of Columbia emergency officials opposed a D.C. Council bill aimed at increasing transparency at the Office of Unified Communications 911 center. During a livestreamed Judiciary and Public Safety Committee hearing Wednesday, OUC Director Heather McGaffin raised privacy concerns about the bill, noting calls from people in sensitive situations might be made public. However, Dave Statter, a former journalist who regularly blogs about OUC errors, said privacy concerns are overblown and more transparency could help. But he said the bill doesn't go far enough.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., is urging the FCC to update its horizontal location (Y-axis) enhanced 911 location accuracy standard to “reflect advances in technology to ensure that” public safety answering points and first responders “can more accurately locate” callers. The existing Y-axis standard the FCC adopted in 2015 “represented a dramatic improvement in E911 accuracy and effectiveness and reflected the technology available at the time,” Eshoo said in a Friday letter to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel we obtained. “But this standard can still lead to mispositioning of E911 callers and compromise the response times of first responders, placing callers on the wrong side of the street, in the wrong building, or even on the wrong block.” Improvements to the global navigation satellite system and other technologies have “advanced significantly” since 2015 and “provide greater horizontal location accuracy and improve emergency response times,” Eshoo said: Any changes to the standard “should be technologically feasible and technologically neutral so that providers can choose the most effective solution from a range of options.” A “lot of new and powerful technologies have been deployed in the decade since the FCC last updated the location accuracy framework,” emailed Cooley’s Robert McDowell, a former FCC commissioner. “They could power devices to locate users with great precision. Uncountable lives could be saved by using modern technology and the Commission could help get us there.”

Some candidates for state utility commissions promised to take on broadband and other telecom matters if they win election this year. Eight states will elect utility regulators this year: Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota. In addition, a New Mexico ballot question will ask voters to authorize millions of dollars for upgrading public safety communications. Meanwhile, Oregon voters will consider a universal basic income that would require Comcast and other big companies to foot the bill.

Windstream promised it would spend $1 million on network reliability and diversity to resolve a Nebraska Public Service Commission investigation into three recent 911 outages that occurred during a five-month period (see 2401230048). Nebraska commissioners voted 5-0 at their Wednesday meeting for an order approving a stipulated agreement between the PSC and Windstream dismissing the matter (docket 911-078). Under a 911 remediation plan, Windstream would upgrade backup power and increase redundancy with an additional third network path for traffic into and out of Nebraska. Moreover, the carrier agreed that a third party should audit and assess network reliability and engineering. The agreement “provides for civil penalties if Windstream does not complete the agreed upon enhancements and improvements by the end of 2025,” Nebraska PSC Chair Dan Watermeier noted. “While we appreciate Windstream’s willingness to work with us, we will continue to monitor the company’s progress to confirm that it is complying with the agreement.” Windstream is “pleased that we were able to amicably resolve this matter,” said Trent Fellers, Windstream vice president-state government affairs for Nebraska. “While we have already taken significant steps to improve our network, Windstream believes the measures outlined in the remediation plan are prudent and will further strengthen our network in the state.” Last week, the Nebraska PSC tentatively scheduled Nov. 4-5 hearings in a separate investigation into a widespread Lumen 911 outage from 2023.