FCC adopts georouting rules for national suicide and crisis lifeline
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The Federal Communication Commission's new rules will require U.S. wireless providers to automatically route calls and text messages to the 988 lifeline to local crisis centers based on the callers’ physical locations.
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to adopt rules requiring all U.S. wireless carriers to deploy georouting technology that can connect callers to the national 988 suicide and crisis lifeline with local crisis centers.
The FCC launched the three-digit crisis line in July 2022, which provides individuals with the opportunity to call, text or chat for support. The lifeline would normally connect callers to responders based on their area codes to help them access nearby services and resources. But people are not always located in the area code assigned to their phone number.
Georouting instead relies on the actual location of a caller. In addition to mandating that calls to the lifeline be georouted to local crisis centers, the new rules — which were unanimously approved by the agency’s commissioners — also require providers to embrace georouting tools so that text messages sent to the 988 lifeline can be more accurately directed. Providers would have six months from the final rule’s effective date to comply with the requirements.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said during the agency’s open meeting on Thursday that approximately 80% of calls to the lifeline come from wireless phones, which means that a caller’s area code may not accurately reflect their location. While she noted that 988 callers still receive help from the responders with whom they are connected, she said more localized centers will be able to provide them with better resources.
“If we get more people connected to the suicide and crisis lifeline to resources that are local, we can help more people with more meaningful assistance in more places — and that’s where georouting fits in,” Rosenworcel said.
The FCC and Department of Health and Human Services previously announced during a press call last month that they had begun the process of georouting calls to the lifeline. A senior administration official said at the time that T-Mobile and Verizon were already routing calls to the lifeline with local crisis centers and that AT&T was expected to do so within the next few months.