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ATIS/TIA Guidelines Enable Interim Nationwide Text to 9-1-1 Solution

WASHINGTON — The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) today announced release of J-STD-110.01, the Implementation Guidelines for J-STD-110, a critical part of an industry-generated solution providing short message service (SMS) subscribers the ability to send an SMS text message to 9-1-1.  This new deliverable educates Commercial Mobile Service Providers (CMSPs) and Text Control Center (TCC) providers on implementing the Joint ATIS/TIA Native SMS to 9-1-1 Requirements and Architecture Specification (J-STD-110) and provides the guidelines for doing so.  Developed as a collaborative effort between ATIS and TIA, J-STD-110 was adopted as an industry standard in March of this year.

“The Implementation Guidelines put the J-STD-110 standard into action allowing a text to 9-1-1 solution to be broadly implemented across the United States,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller. “ATIS also has developed an efficient checklist that gives Public Safety entities a systematic way of identifying the tasks to enable coordinated communications with the other parties in the emergency response chain.”

“This addendum to J-STD-110 ensures both telecommunications service providers and manufacturers will have necessary information on the critical steps needed to enact the standard efficiently and effectively,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert. “The guidelines will help support the current voluntary framework for a SMS text to 9-1-1 solution and are another part of the collaboration between ATIS and TIA on this necessary standard.”
 
The Implementation Guidelines will be of use to the many CMSPs, SMS Center vendors, TCC vendors, and TCC providers by providing information necessary to deploy the SMS to 9-1-1 solution.  The Guidelines also will be of value to public safety and other 9-1-1 stakeholders by providing the necessary materials to assist them in the development of training or operational materials as they migrate to support this solution.   In addition to the Implementation Guidelines, ATIS and TIA have published a supplement (J-STD-110.a) that enhances the existing J-STD-110 solution, and also includes a new use case and process flows. 
 
The new Guidelines position service providers to have a fully operational text to 9-1-1 solution in place by May 15, 2014, the target date communicated to the Federal Communications Commission by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA and Verizon, all active participants in the J-STD-110 development. These four providers have pointed to J-STD-110 to support the voluntary framework for an interim text to 9-1-1 solution, which supports coarse location to route the text to the appropriate PSAP, the ability to send a text to the short code “911,” and delivery of a message advising the caller to dial 9-1-1 when texting to 9-1-1 is not available. This interim solution will be implemented while the long-term Next Generation 9-1-1 solution is being developed in ATIS and 3GPP for Multimedia Messaging Emergency Services in the next technology generation.

The Implementation Guidelines for J-STD-110, as well as the J-STD-110 Supplement, will be available via the ATIS Document Center and TIA’s website.

About ATIS
As a leading technology and solutions development organization, ATIS brings together the top global ICT companies to advance the industry’s most-pressing business priorities. Through ATIS committees and forums, nearly 200 companies address cloud services, device solutions, emergency services, M2M communications, cyber security, ehealth, network evolution, quality of service, billing support, operations, and more. These priorities follow a fast-track development lifecycle — from design and innovation through solutions that include standards, specifications, requirements, business use cases, software toolkits, and interoperability testing.

ATIS is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ATIS is the North American Organizational Partner for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a founding Partner of oneM2M, a member and major U.S. contributor to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radio and Telecommunications sectors, and a member of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL). For more information, visit www.atis.org.

About TIA
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) represents the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry through standards development, advocacy, tradeshows, business opportunities, market intelligence and world-wide environmental regulatory analysis. Since 1924, TIA has been developing standards to enhance the business environment for broadband, mobile wireless, information technology, networks, cable, satellite and unified communications. Members’ products and services empower communications in every industry and market, including healthcare, education, security, public safety, transportation, government, the military, the environment and entertainment.

TIA is an ANSI-accredited standards development organization with standards development activities have both a national and global reach and impact. TIA is one of the founding partners and also serves as Secretariat for 3GPP2 (a consortium of five SDOs in the U.S., Japan, Korea, and China with more than 65 member companies) which is engaged in drafting future-oriented wireless communications standards. TIA also is active in the formulation of U.S. positions on technical and policy issues, administering four International Secretariats and 16 U.S. Technical Advisory Groups (“TAGs”) to international technical standards committees at the International Electrotechnical Commission (“IEC”). Visit www.tiaonline.org.