Telecom Interests Question 2022 Deadline for Texting 988
Telecom interests disagree about the feasibility of texting the 988 suicide prevention hotline by July 16, 2022, in docket 18-336 comments due Monday. Text-to-988 can be instituted by that implementation deadline for 988 voice service or within six months of…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
when Lifeline is technically prepped to receive and handle texts, whichever is later, CTIA said. It said the FCC should rely on the text-to-911 definitions of 'covered providers" and "covered services" here. It said the FCC should keep evaluating the feasibility and policy considerations of such issues as a broader scope of supported messaging services and the provisioning of location information. Calling the 2022 deadline feasible, ATIS said covered text providers should have to route 988 text messages to Lifeline's current 10-digit number instead of a Lifeline local crisis center, because a text-to-911-type architecture "would require significantly more time to implement." ATIS said modeling text-to-988 after text-to-911 would mean nine to 12 months of updating specifications, and 12 to 18 months of implementation. Voice on the Net Coalition said text-to-988 should have the same exemptions as text-to-911 from non-interconnected texting applications and covered text providers in Wi-Fi-only locations requirements. It said new routing and technical standards for text-to-988 could make meeting the 2022 deadline difficult. It said the FCC instead should look at an implementation deadline of 12 months after the effective date of the order. Support enhanced funding and resources for 988 and the network of crisis centers answering those calls to ensure it has the capacity to respond to texts, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention commented. Lack of support to receive, address and respond to text messages "will set [the texting] capacity up for failure," it said. Also citing funding concerns, the Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness said the FCC should collaborate with providers and payers on structuring operational functionality of the crisis line. An array of mental health organizations including the American Psychiatric Association, American Association of Suicidology and National Alliance on Mental Illness urged requiring automated bounceback messages when text-to-988 isn't answerable and that texting be available by the July 2022 988 voice call deadline. The National Association of the Deaf, National Disability Rights Network and others urged expanding the scope of the order to include real-time text, rich communications service and other successor formats and to cover all interconnected texting service providers.