The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to require that all calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline be routed by wireless carriers to local call centers.
Cellphone carriers will be required to use georouting to connect callers to the 988 call center closest to the caller’s physical location, a change intended to streamline connections to local resources and broaden services.
“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,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said before the vote Thursday. “Georouting means that those responding to 988 inquiries have a lot more knowledge of local resources and local events.”
