9-1-1 texting may soon be available

Texting technology may soon be adaptable to the state's 9-1-1 emergency service.

9-1-1 Emergency Call Centers, like the one in Manchester, have been up and running for years. And with reverse technology dispatchers, they can almost always pinpoint the spot where emergency services personnel are needed.

But with more and more people using texting, could that be the next way to quickly contact the police? State lawmakers are exploring that possibility.

"We would like to do that if it's feasible to do in these tough economic times," said Rep. Steve Dargan [D] of the Public Safety Committee.

And, the Department of Public Safety said it is possible.

"It's technologically possible and we've been working on our end of the equation for about three years now," said Stephen Verbil of CT Department of Public Safety.

In fact, they think they could be ready for it as soon as 2011.

Current 9-1-1 service is paid for by a tax on your cellphone or land line service. If it's going to be expanded to include texting, that tax may have to be increased to pay for it.

It would take an act of the legislature to increase the tax beyond 50 cents per phone line. It's currently 47 cents but that's not the only issue.

Billions of text messages are sent and received every day but the service uses temporarily vacant pieces of the wireless network so it can be very slow.

"It was designed to take a piece of the network that was transiently not being used and allow it for casual communications," said James White, AT&T Executive Director of Public Policy. "It was never designed for any level of service suitable for emergency communication services."

But the Department of Public Safety said that's not the whole truth.

"What's going to be required is for the carriers to make changes to their system to allow it to happen," said Verbil.

And that would likely mean a big and expensive system wide change for the cellphone companies.