April 2025

Committee Reports

Click on a committee name below to display this month's issues.

• ESIF: Emergency Services Interconnection Forum
  • Issue: 0120
  • Title: NG911 Text Messaging
  • Statement: Emergency services in the United States require a standards-compliant NG911 solution that allows individuals to request help through voice calls, text messages, or other multimedia. Existing solutions for requesting emergency assistance via text in the United States rely on the interim J-STD-110.v002 standard, which defines the Joint ATIS/TIA requirements and architecture for native SMS/MMS Text-to-911. The advent and growing adoption of NG911 voice delivery mark a pivotal moment for modernizing emergency communications. With NG911 deployments now supporting IP-based, standards-compliant voice calls, the time is right to evolve the delivery of all multimedia emergency requests—starting with text messaging. Leveraging 3GPP and NG911 standards ensures that emergency text and other multimedia communications, such as images, video, and real-time data sharing, are as seamless, reliable, and interoperable as voice. As NG911 text messaging evolves, specifications and solutions are needed to ensure seamless backward compatibility with interim SMS Text-to-911. Interim Text-to-911 implementations rely on Text Control Centers (TCCs) as defined in the J-STD-110.v002 architecture, which serve as gateways for message delivery to PSAPs. To maintain reliable emergency communication during the transition to full NG911 deployment, new solutions must continue support interoperability with both legacy E911 and NG911 infrastructures, ensuring that all text messages are properly routed, received, and processed by Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) without service degradation.
  • Resolution:
  • Status: New Issue

  • Issue: 0121
  • Title: IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Data Channel for Emergency
  • Statement: The goal of NG911 is to evolve from a voice-centric 911 system to a more advanced, IP-based digital infrastructure. As emergency communications evolves beyond traditional voice and text, there is a growing need to support rich, real-time data exchange between callers, Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), and First Responders. Current solutions lack a standardized, efficient mechanism to transmit multimedia, sensor data, medical records, and other critical information during emergencies. Implementing the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) Data Channel (DC) for emergency services will enable real-time, IP-based data sharing alongside NG911 voice and text sessions. This capability enhances situational awareness by allowing the seamless transmission of images, video, medical data, and interactive messaging within a standardized, secure, and interoperable framework. By integrating IMS DC with NG911 and 3GPP emergency communication standards, emergency services can improve response effectiveness, decision-making, and overall public safety outcomes while ensuring compatibility across disparate networks and devices. IDC features are additive to an established IMS originated voice or text sessions to NG911 systems. IDC supports features not limited to: • Seamless Integration of Multimedia with Two-Way Request and Response APIs • Text Messaging (session-based and real-time) • On-demand Video Streaming • Discrete binary sharing (file transfer) • HTTP interfaces for interoperability • Encryption (can be supported) • Minimization of Impacts to End-User Devices and Public Safety Systems New specifications and solutions are needed to accommodate IMS DC that do not yet exist for emergency call delivery to Next Generation Core Services (NGCS) served networks.
  • Resolution:
  • Status: New Issue

  • Issue: 0122
  • Title: In support of FCC’s request to identify and standardize 988 Georouting for Short Message Service (SMS) text messages to 988
  • Statement: “988” was designated as the three-digit, nationwide number to connect directly to the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (“988 Lifeline”.) Mental health professionals in over 200 Lifeline crisis centers nationwide help people experiencing suicidal crisis or mental health-related distress. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. In 2021, the Commission adopted requirements for covered text providers to route covered 988 text messages to the 988 Lifeline (aka, text-to-988). Subsequently, the FCC published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in October 2024 “to require that covered text providers implement the capability to provide georouting data with covered 988 SMS text messages to the Lifeline Administrator and provide georouting data with covered 988 text messages to the Lifeline Administrator.” Similar to georouting for 988 voice calls, the aim of the FCC’s NPRM is to publish rules that would require Covered Text Providers (CTP) to implement the capability to provide georouting data with covered 988 text messages to allow routing of texts to 988 to the appropriate crisis center based on the geographical area of the originating text while protecting user location privacy. In anticipation of the final ruling, ESIF should consider the gap in standards and recommend a technical solution.
  • Resolution:
  • Status: New Issue

  For more information, visit the ESIF home page or contact Drew Greco.

• NRSC: Network Reliability Steering Committee
  • Issue: 0057
  • Title: 988 Lifeline Designated Points of Contact
  • Statement: FCC 23-57 WC Docket No. 18-336 establishes a requirement to deliver notifications to 988 special facility Designated Point of Contact (DPOC). This contact information must exercise “special diligence” to identify, maintain, and, on an annual basis, confirm current contact information. Three 988 special facilities must be contacted, SAMHSA, the VA, and the 988 Lifeline Administrator. However, the Commission does not provide material guidance on establishing these initial DPOCs, leaving each service provider to search out contact, email, and phone individually. This issue would leverage the NRSC membership to work together on identifying these DPOCs for industry use.
  • Resolution: The NRSC leadership met several times between August 2024 and March 2025 with the 988 stakeholders and obtained phone numbers, email addresses, and names for 988 outage reporting. This information was subsequently shared with the NRSC membership.
  • Status: Final Closure

  For more information, visit the NRSC home page or contact Mignot Asefa.

• WTSC: Wireless Technologies and Systems Committee
  • Issue: 0110
  • Title: Practical Hints for Alert Originators Update to Review Content and Address Recently Identified Issues
  • Statement: One field issue and one misalignment were recently identified: 1) A recent alert with the CMAC_sender field having a large number of characters resulted in an error in some CMSP Gateways due to a limit on the allowed number of stored characters for logging purposes, causing the need for the field to be updated before the alert could be fully disseminated. 2) A misalignment between the allowances from FEMA and some CMSP Gateways with regard to geometric shape coordinates lying outside the authorized geocode of the sending Alert Originator has been identified. In addition, there is device alert handling information relevant to the decision-making by the Alert Originator with regard to their choice of alert class. For example, the Imminent Threat alert classes may circumvent DND settings on the device. This knowledge, combined with other factors, may impact the choices of the AO and should be reflected to the extent possible in the Practical Hints document. If any other concerns are identified, they will be addressed during this update.
  • Resolution:
  • Status: New Issue

  For more information, visit the WTSC home page or contact Anna Karditzas.

Definitions

• New Issue: Business, operational, or technical needs that a committee has reached consensus to address.
• Issue in Initial Closure: Issues for which a committee has reached consensus on a proposed resolution. The industry has a 21 calendar day period to review and comment on the consensus resolution developed by the committee. The committee's consensus resolution concludes its work on an issue unless new or substantive information is brought forth. During the 21 day review period, comments on a consensus resolution may be provided to the committee contact and committee leaders.
• Issue in Initial Pending: Issues previously in Initial Closure for which new and substantive information impacting the consensus resolution has been received. An issue may also be in Initial Pending if output that may impact the consensus resolution is expected from another industry group, regulatory body or similar organization.
• Issue in Final Closure: Issues for which work is completed and the resolution accepted by the industry.

Recently Approved ATIS Standards

INC

• Document Number: ATIS-0300119(2025-04)
• Title: Thousands-Block (NPA-NXX-X) & Central Office Code (NPA-NXX) Administration Guidelines
• Type: Revision
• View Here

STEP

• Document Number: ATIS-0600307.2024
• Title: Fire Resistance Criteria - Ignitability Requirements for Equipment Assemblies, and Fire Spread Requirements for Wire and Cable
• Type: Revision
• View Here
• Document Number: ATIS-0600329.2024
• Title: Network Equipment - Earthquake Resistance
• Type: Revision
• View Here

Recent Policy Filings

ATIS

• Date: 04/11/2025
• Description: Comments in Response to FCC Delete, Delete, Delete Notice
• View filing

SYNC

• Date: 04/28/2025
• Description: Comments in Response to FCC Notice of Inquiry for Promoting the Development of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Technologies and Solutions
• View filing

WTSC

• Date: 04/17/2025
• Description: Petition for Clarification/Reconsideration in Response to FCC re: Wireless Emergency Alerts and Amendments to Part 11 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Emergency Alert Systems
• View filing
• Date: 04/17/2025
• Description: Comments in Response to FCC re: Wireless Emergency Alerts and Amendments to Part 11 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Emergency Alert Systems
• View filing