E911: Indoor Positioning is Embarking on a New Arms Race

If you ever need to make a call to the emergency services, and you have a choice, use a traditional landline.

That’s the most important thing to remember from this post. “But why?”, I hear you cry. Well, it’s pretty simple.

The land line is at a known, fixed location – the location that a telecommunications engineer went to at some point in the past to set up the telephone socket. That location is held on a database by the telecommunications operator. If the emergency caller cannot pass on any useful location information to the 999 or 911 operator, then the telecommunications provider can pass on the location of the telephone in a few seconds. In most areas this entire process has been automated and the emergency operator sees the details of the location of the telephone as soon as the call is connected.

Full Article