988 georouting — routing crisis calls without precise location
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a national number answered by a network of local crisis centers, so every call has to be routed to one of them. Until 2024 that routing decision was made from the area code of the calling number. A person who moved from Chicago to Phoenix and kept their number reached a Chicago crisis center, which is the wrong center for arranging a local response.
What the FCC required
The Commission adopted a Third Report and Order (FCC 24-111, October 2024) requiring wireless carriers to georoute 988 voice calls — to route on the device’s general location rather than the number’s area code. The rules took effect December 12, 2024, with nationwide CMRS providers required to comply 30 days after the effective date and non-nationwide providers given 24 months. A companion order (FCC 25-42) extends georouting to text messages sent to 988.
The order also constrains what carriers may share. Cell-based location data must be aggregated to a level that does not identify the cell site or base station handling the call, and does not identify the precise location of the handset.
What ATIS-0500049 specifies
In August 2026, ATIS’ Emergency Services Interconnection Forum (ESIF) published ATIS-0500049, GeoRouting for 988 Voice Calls. Per the ATIS announcement, it specifies how carriers convey the caller’s general location as state and county-level FIPS codes carried in existing SS7 and SIP signaling, so the 988 network can select the correct local crisis center “without using precise geolocation data.”
Two things follow from that choice. Carrying the value in signaling fields that already exist means the mechanism deploys across the installed base rather than waiting on new interfaces. And a county FIPS code is the coarsest resolution that still answers the routing question, so the privacy constraint in the FCC order is satisfied by the data model rather than by a downstream handling rule.
The specification itself sits behind the ATIS member wall; this entry rests on the public announcement and the FCC orders it responds to.
How it differs from 911 location
NG911 needs dispatchable location — an address, a floor, a room — because a responder has to arrive at a specific place. 988 needs to reach a crisis center whose service area covers the caller, and a county is enough to determine that. The two obligations look similar from a distance and have different resolution requirements, which is why 988 georouting did not simply reuse the 911 handset-location machinery.
“This feature needs location data” recurs across proceedings. 988 georouting separated the routing question from the dispatch question and specified to the lower of the two, which is the comparison to reach for when the claim comes up again.