A system and method for communicating geographic coordinates with an emergency data message to a public safety answering point (PSAP) may include receiving a request from a user to send an emergency data message to a PSAP and determining whether geographic coordinates are locally available. If geographic coordinates are locally available, then the locally available geographic coordinates may be obtained and included with an emergency data message. Otherwise, if the geographic coordinates are not locally available, then a request for geographic coordinates from a network node on a communications network may be made and received from the communications network for inclusion with the emergency data message. The emergency data message may be communicated to a network node on the communications network for routing to the PSAP.