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For $20 a year, this app gets you 911 help faster than the police

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BlueLight

Dialing 911 isn't as simple as you might think.

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In fact, the current system of call routing could cost you precious seconds during an emergency.

That's where an app called BlueLight could soon come into play.

Consider the situation in Oakland, California, where residents face a tricky decision every time they dial the police.

Option one: Dial 911 and get transferred to California Highway Patrol in Vallejo, about 25 miles away, where an operator locates the caller and sends that information back down to an Oakland dispatcher.

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That takes about 45 seconds.

Option two: Dial a 10-digit number that patches you through to an Oakland dispatcher who then asks where you are, which may be difficult to answer if you're in distress.

BlueLight wants to offer people a third option: For $20 a year beginning this February, Oakland residents will be able to press a single button in an app that contacts an Oakland dispatcher and gives their location all at once. It takes about 10 seconds (minus the time it takes to open the app).

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BlueLight

Preet Anand, BlueLight's CEO, says law enforcement in his hometown has been in dire need of innovation for a while.

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"It's not just like other cities where 911 doesn't get good location," Anand tells Tech Insider. "In Oakland, you're not even getting routed correctly."

Oakland's dilemma is really an extreme case of a problem that occurs across the country, and it's because of how call routing works. Basically, when your cell phone connects to a tower, that tower won't necessarily be the closest one. And unless you're on a landline, the person who picks up won't know where you are. You have to tell them.

Each year, approximately 10,000 people die as a result of poor routing causing poor response times, the FCC reports.

On MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, the 911 routing is so poor that students are explicitly told not to dial 911. Instead, they dial a separate 10-digit number for the MIT Police. BlueLight acts as a middle man to do the routing that mobile carriers can't.

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In an economically-challenged and crime-ridden city like Oakland, Anand admits that Blue Light's business model could seem counter-intuitive. The people who need protection the most probably aren't in the best position to pay for it.

"Some people are concerned that there isn't universal access immediately," he says. "Our position is that we want to start making an impact now."

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BlueLight

In Oakland, the seventh-most unequal city in the US, private security companies have already started replacing the Oakland Police Department in wealthier neighborhoods. 

They may be able to protect people better or faster than the OPD at times, but they also create even more inequality. Rich people, with more to spend on security than the poor, enjoy better protection.

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Ideally, the local police department would integrate BlueLight into its existing 911 services, Anand says. He wants the city to provide the service for free as a workaround to its existing system.

He hasn't gotten much traction in that relationship, though he declined to comment on the police department's behalf as to why that might be.

The Oakland Police Department did not reply for comment.

He's also felt backlash from the mobile carriers, he says, since they are the ones who currently route 911 calls. Although, he points out that BlueLight is simply innovating "in the same way WhatsApp and Facebook got into the carriers' turf by destroying a lot of SMS revenues."

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On college campuses, BlueLight cuts response times by about 40%, Anand says. If all goes to plan, the Oakland experiment will achieve similar results, but that hard data won't actually be available for several months.

Until then, BlueLight will keep chugging away with the service it's provided to college students across the country. The company is also thinking about expanding to other cities around the country.

"At a high level," Anand says, "BlueLight is focused on bringing personal safety into the digital age."

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