The Federal Communications Commission has passed rules that will require all wireless calls to the 988 Lifeline to be georouted. Geographic routing ensures that attempts to reach the National Suicide Prevention Hotline for intervention services will be sent to the location where the call is placed rather than to the location of the caller's area code and exchange.

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,

The Federal Communications Commission Board of Commissioners has adopted rules that require wireless carriers to route calls to the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline based on the caller’s geographic location instead of by area code.

The Federal Communications Commission will vote this week on rules requiring cell phone carriers to route calls to the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline based on approximate location rather than phone number area code — a technology known as georouting.

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.