And not a damn part of that has anything that would keep me from having to look around on Google maps or something similar trying to match up a vague description of a location that my caller may not even be at to something that I can enter into our system.

For someone so hung up on reading, you’re really fucking bad at comprehend what the issue is that I’m describing.

Sure, I may getter more accurate location info, maybe even good enough to tell what side of the street my caller is on now, but I’m still going to need to figure out what side of the road they were on when an incident actually happened to figure out jurisdiction, because they may have turned around, pulled over 2 blocks away, turned I to a parking lot across the street, or waited 6 hours and went home before calling.

So one way or another I’m going to need to look for landmarks on a map or something like Google street view that my caller will recognize and get them to describe where they were in relation to those landmarks.

And sure they’ll be able send me pictures or video call me to show me where they’re talking about. If it’s live video that combined with location data while they’re still on-scene that would certainly be great, but otherwise I’m still gonna have to be hunting around on a map trying to figure out which of the 6 Sunoco gas stations in town they sent me a picture of.

And they can text me, which is something we’ve had in my county for a while. Great for people who aren’t able to talk for one reason or another, but not exactly a dramatic upgrade over asking the same questions and getting the same answers verbally

PSAP registries, better interoperability with other PSAPs, etc. is nice, but totally besides the issue here. Both sides of the border could be departments we dispatch for and I just need to know which one to send

And better address lists, ALI info, phone records and such are nice, but if they’re not at their home address, they don’t know the name of the business they’re calling about, and all they can give me is that it happened “in the park with a statue that looks like a dick” or “that vacant lot where Bob’s Deli used to be” (Bob’s Deli, as it turns out, burned down in 1983) none of that is particularly helpful.

Again, there are really good use cases for NG911, and I’M not denying that. Every day I find some circumstance where I’d love to have those promised capabilities that are allegedly just around the corner for us.

But none of them solve this problem.

And you’ve been sold on the idea that ng911 is some sort of magical pill that’s going to give every dispatcher $10,000, a pony, and a blowjob while the calls practically handle themselves, and that’s just not the case.

So get your head out of your fucking ass.