>"All wireless phones, even those that are not subscribed to or supported by a specific carrier, can call 911. However, calls to 911 on phones without active service do not deliver the caller’s location to the 911 call center, and the call center cannot call these phones back to find out the caller’s location or the nature of the emergency. If disconnected, the 911 center has no way to call back the caller."
Requiring carriers to enable whatever side-channel is necessary to transmit location info to the 911 PSAP shouldn't be a heavy lift.
The callback issue seems harder to resolve, but even if a handset has no assigned phone number, there are other ways to address it (e.g. IMEI). Carriers should be required to build in a capability to make this work.
> Requiring carriers to enable whatever side-channel is necessary to transmit location info to the 911 PSAP shouldn't be a heavy lift.
Carriers can and they should.
> The callback issue seems harder to resolve, but even if a handset has no assigned phone number, there are other ways to address it (e.g. IMEI). Carriers should be required to build in a capability to make this work.
Carriers can't, because the 3GPP standards do not make this possible.
>"All wireless phones, even those that are not subscribed to or supported by a specific carrier, can call 911. However, calls to 911 on phones without active service do not deliver the caller’s location to the 911 call center, and the call center cannot call these phones back to find out the caller’s location or the nature of the emergency. If disconnected, the 911 center has no way to call back the caller."
Source: https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-questions/
Seems they're deliberately distorting their responsibilities.