9-1-1 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number

Emergency telephone number

Many countries' public telephone networks have a single emergency telephone number, sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or occasionally the emergency services number, that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assistance. The emergency telephone number may...

for the North American Numbering Plan

North American Numbering Plan

The North American Numbering Plan is an integrated telephone numbering plan administered by Neustar which encompasses 24 countries and territories, including the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda, and 16 nations of the Caribbean...

(NANP).

It is one of eight N11 code

N11 code

An N11 code or N11 number is a special abbreviated dialing telephone number within the North American Numbering Plan, which allows access to special services. Each of these eight numbers prevents 10,000 telephone numbers from being used...

s.

The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose (including non-emergency situations and prank call

Prank call

A prank call is a form of practical joke committed over the telephone. Prank phone calls began to gain an America-wide following over a period of many years, as they gradually became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded amongst musicians, sound engineers, and media traders...

s) can be a crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

History

In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the development of the rotary dial

Rotary dial

The rotary dial is a device mounted on or in a telephone or switchboard that is designed to send electrical pulses, known as pulse dialing, corresponding to the number dialed. The early form of the rotary dial used lugs on a finger plate instead of holes. Almon Brown Strowger filed the first patent...

telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

, all telephone calls were operator

Telephone operator

A telephone operator is either* a person who provides assistance to a telephone caller, usually in the placing of operator assisted telephone calls such as calls from a pay phone, collect calls , calls which are billed to a credit card, station-to-station and person-to-person calls, and certain...

-assisted. To place a call, the caller was required to pick up the telephone receiver and wait for the telephone operator to answer with "Number please?" They would then ask to be connected to the number they wished to call, and the operator would make the required connection manually, by means of a switchboard

Telephone switchboard

A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges . The user was typically known as an operator...

. In an emergency, the caller might simply say "Get me the police", "I want to report a fire", or "I need an ambulance/doctor". It was usually not necessary to ask for any of these services by number, even in large cities. Indeed, until the ability to dial a phone number came into widespread use in the 1950s (it had existed in limited form since the 1920s), telephone users could not place calls without operator assistance. During the period when an operator was always involved in placing a phone call, the operator instantly knew the calling party's number, even if the caller could not stay on the line, by simply looking at the number above the line jack of the calling party. In smaller centers, telephone operators frequently went the extra mile by making sure they knew the locations of local doctors

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, vets

Veterinarian

A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....

, law enforcement personnel

Police officer

A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

, and even private citizens who were willing or able to help in an emergency. Frequently, the operator would activate the town's fire alarm, and acted as an informational clearinghouse when an emergency such as a fire occurred. When North American cities and towns began to convert to rotary dial or "automatic" telephone service, many people were concerned about the loss of the personalized service that had been provided by local operators. This problem was partially solved by telling people to dial "0" for the local assistance operator, if they did not know the Fire

Fire department

A fire department or fire brigade is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district...

or Police Department's full number.

In many cases, the local emergency services would attempt to obtain telephone numbers that were easy for the public to remember. Many fire departments, for example, would attempt to obtain an emergency telephone line with a number ending in "3-4-7-3", which spelled the word

Telephone keypad

A telephone keypad is a keypad that appears on a "Touch Tone" telephone. It was standardised when the dual-tone multi-frequency system in the new push-button telephone was introduced in the 1960s, which gradually replaced the rotary dial....

"Fire" on the corresponding letters of the rotary telephone dial. In some areas (especially during the time when local numbers could be reached by dialing only the last five digits), picking up the phone, dialing one's own local exchange prefix then "F-I-R-E" would ring the nearest fire station.

Some cities made early attempts at a centralized emergency number, using a conventional telephone number. In Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, for example, the Metropolitan Toronto Police communications bureau attempted to promote their emergency number "Empire" 1-1111, or "361-1111", for use in all emergencies (Empire was the name for the exchange "3-6"; all telephone exchanges at the time had corresponding names). The rationale was that the abbreviation of the Empire exchange in common usage, "EM", corresponded to the first two letters of the word "emergency" and that the caller only had to remember the number "1" beyond that. This was never widely accepted, in that the City's fourteen local fire department

Fire department

s continued to tell the public to call them directly and the service never actually included ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

s, which in those days were considered a private transportation service. This was further complicated by the fact that the numbers changed by municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

, and the emergency number and emergency services on one side of a street might be completely different from the other side if the street was a municipal boundary. When a caller was uncertain of his or her exact location, emergency responses could be delayed, and so, for most people, it was simply easier to rely upon the telephone operator to make the connections. The efforts of telephone companies to publicize "Dial '0' for Emergencies" were ultimately abandoned in the face of company staffing and liability concerns,
but not before generations of school children were taught to "dial 0 in case of emergency", just as they are currently taught to dial 9-1-1. This situation of unclear emergency telephone numbers would continue, in most places in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, into the early 1980s. In some locales, the problem persists to this day.

The first known experiment with a national emergency telephone number occurred in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

in 1937, using the number 999

999 (emergency telephone number)

999 is an official emergency telephone number in a number of countries which allows the caller to contact emergency services for urgent assistance....

. The first city in North America to use a central emergency number (in 1959) was the Canadian city of Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

, which instituted the change at the urging of Stephen Juba

Stephen Juba

Stephen Juba, OC was a Canadian politician. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1953 to 1959, and served as the 37th Mayor of Winnipeg from 1957 to 1977. He was the first Ukrainian Canadian to hold high political office in the city.Juba left school at age fifteen, when...

, mayor of Winnipeg at the time. Winnipeg initially used 999 as the emergency number, but switched numbers when 9-1-1 was proposed by the United States. In the United States, the push for the development of a nationwide American emergency telephone number came in 1957 when the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended that a single number be used for reporting fires. In 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recommended the creation of a single number that could be used nationwide for reporting emergencies. The burden then fell on the Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

, which then met with AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

in November, 1967 in order to come up with a solution.

In 1968, a solution was agreed upon. AT&T

AT&T

chose to implement the concept, but with its unique emergency number, 9-1-1, which was brief, easy to remember, dialed easily, and worked well with the phone systems in place at the time. How the number 9-1-1 itself was decided upon is not well known and is subject to much speculation by the general public. However, many assert that the number 9-1-1 was chosen to be similar to the numbers 2-1-1 (long distance), 4-1-1

4-1-1

4-1-1 is the telephone number for local directory assistance in the United States and Canada. One exception is the Pacific Northwest, which used 1-1-3 until the mid-1980s. Until the early 1980s, 4-1-1 calls were free in most states....

("information" or directory assistance

Directory assistance

In telecommunications, directory assistance or directory enquiries is a phone service used to find out a specific telephone number and/or address of a residence, business, or government entity.-Technology:...

), and 6-1-1

6-1-1

For customers of some telephone companies in Canada and in the U.S., 611 is the abbreviated dialing telephone number used to report a problem with telephone service, or with a payphone...

(repair service), which had already been in use by AT&T since the 1920s.

Another consideration is that most phones of the time used the pulse dialing

Pulse dialing

Pulse dialing, dial pulse, or loop disconnect dialing, also called rotary or decadic dialling in the United Kingdom , is pulsing in which a direct-current pulse train is produced by interrupting a steady signal according to a fixed or formatted code for each digit and at a standard pulse repetition...

system, which could be misdirected if the dial did not spin freely, either from sticky mechanism or a user keeping the finger in the dial. Using 9-1-1 forced the user to remove the dialing finger after the first number (whether using pulse or DTMF dialing) and go to the opposite end of the dial or keypad, thus reducing both accidental failure to dial the number and accidental dialing of the emergency number. Accidental dialing of 9-1-1 has become an increasing problem, as an increasing number of cellular phones

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

are carried in pockets, purses or other places where objects may rest against the keys and repeatedly press them.

Not all such N11 numbers

N11 code

are common throughout the telephone systems of North America. Some of the designated services provided by these numbers are regional, and there are significant differences in number allocation between Canada and the United States; only 4-1-1 and 9-1-1 are universally used. In addition, because it was important to ensure that the emergency number was not dialed accidentally, 9-1-1 made sense because the numbers "9" and "1" were on opposite ends of a phone's rotary dial

Rotary dial

. Furthermore, the North American Numbering Plan

North American Numbering Plan

in use at the time established rules for which numbers could be used for area codes and exchanges

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

. At the time, the middle digit of an area code had to be either a 0 or 1, and the first two digits of an exchange could not be a 1. At the telephone switching station, the second dialed digit was used to determine if the number was long distance or local. If the number had a 0 or 1 as the second digit, it was long distance, if it had any other digit, it was a local call. Thus, since the number 9-1-1 was detected by the switching equipment as a special number, it could be routed appropriately. Also, since 9-1-1 was a unique number, never having been used as an area code or service code (although at one point GTE

GTE

GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System....

used test numbers such as 11911), it could fit into the existent phone system easily. AT&T announced the selection of 9-1-1 as their choice of the three-digit emergency number at a press conference in the Washington (DC) office of Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

Rep. J. Edward Roush

J. Edward Roush

John Edward Roush was a U.S. Representative from Indiana.Born in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, Roush graduated from Huntington High School, Huntington, Indiana, 1938.A.B., Huntington College, Huntington, Indiana, 1942....

, who had championed Congressional support of a single emergency number.

Soon after, in Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, Bob Gallagher, then-president of the independent Alabama Telephone Company (ATC), read an article in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

from January 15, 1968, which reported the AT&T 9-1-1 announcement. Gallagher’s competitive spirit motivated him to beat AT&T to the punch by being the first to implement the 9-1-1 service. In need of a suitable spot within his company's territory to implement 9-1-1, he contacted Robert Fitzgerald, who was Inside State Plant Manager for ATC. Fitzgerald recommended Haleyville, Alabama

Haleyville, Alabama

Haleyville is a city in Winston and Marion counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. Most of the city is located in Winston County, with a small portion of the western limits entering Marion County. Haleyville was originally named Davis Cross Roads, having been established at the crossroads of Byler...

as the prime site. Gallagher later issued a press release announcing that 9-1-1 service would begin in Haleyville on February 16, 1968. Fitzgerald designed the circuitry, and with the assistance of technicians Jimmy White, Glenn Johnston, Al Bush and Pete Gosa, they quickly completed the central office work and installation. Just 35 days after AT&T's announcement, on February 16, 1968, the first-ever 9-1-1 call was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite, from Haleyville City Hall, to U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill

Tom Bevill

Tom Bevill , a Democrat, was a fifteen-term U.S. congressman representing Alabama's 4th Congressional District .-Early years and education:...

, at the city's police station. Bevill reportedly answered the phone with "Hello". At the City Hall with Fite was Haleyville mayor James Whitt; at the police station with Bevill were Gallagher and Alabama Public Service Commission

Alabama Public Service Commission

The Alabama Public Service Commission, commonly called The PSC, was established by an act of The Alabama Legislature in 1915 to primarily replace the State Railroad Commission. The PSC's responsibility was expanded in 1920 to include regulating and setting rates that utility companies charge their...

director Eugene "Bull" Connor

Bull Connor

Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor was the Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, during the American Civil Rights Movement...

. Fitzgerald was at the ATC central office serving Haleyville, and actually observed the call pass through the switching gear as the mechanical equipment clunked out "9-1-1". The phone used to answer the first 9-1-1 call, a bright red model, is now in a museum in Haleyville, while a duplicate phone is still in use at the police station

Police station

A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...

In 1968, 9-1-1 became the national emergency number for the United States. In theory at least, calling this single number provided a caller access to police, fire and ambulance services, through what would become known as a common Public-safety answering point

Public-safety answering point

A Public Safety Answering Point , sometimes called "Public Safety Access Point", is a call center responsible for answering calls to an emergency telephone number for police, firefighting, and ambulance services. Trained telephone operators are also usually responsible for dispatching these...

(PSAP). The number itself, however, did not become widely known until the 1970s.

Conversion to 9-1-1 in Canada began in 1972 and most major cities are now using 9-1-1. Each year, Canadians make 12 million calls to 9-1-1.

Locating callers automatically

In over 98% of locations in the United States and Canada, dialing "911" from any
telephone will link the caller to an emergency dispatch

Dispatcher

Dispatchers are communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information...

center—called a PSAP, or Public Safety Answering Point, by the telecom industry—which can send emergency responders to the caller's location in an emergency. In most areas (approximately 96% of the US) enhanced 911

Enhanced 911

Enhanced 911, E-911 or E911 in North America is one example of the modern evolution of telecommunications based system meant as an easy way to link people experiencing an emergency with the public resources that can help. The dial-three-digits concept first originated in the United Kingdom in 1937....

is available, which automatically gives dispatch

Dispatcher

Dispatchers are communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information...

the caller's location, if available. Enhanced 9-1-1 or E9-1-1 service is a North American telecommunications-based system that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party's telephone number, and routes the call to the most appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for that address. The caller’s address and information (as recorded by the telephone company) are displayed to the PSAP calltaker immediately upon the site's receipt of the call. This provides emergency responders with the location of the emergency without the person calling for help having to provide it. This is often useful in cases of fires, break-ins, kidnapping, and other events where communicating one's location is difficult or impossible. In North America, the system works only if the emergency telephone number 9-1-1 is called. Calls made to other telephone numbers, even though they may be listed as an emergency telephone number, may not permit this feature to function correctly.

Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)

The final destination of an E9-1-1 call—the location where the 9-1-1 operator is working—is called a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). There may be multiple PSAPs within the same exchange, or one PSAP may cover multiple exchanges. The territories covered by a single PSAP are based more on historical and legal police considerations than on telecommunications issues. Most PSAPs have a regional Emergency Service Number, a number identifying the PSAP.

The Caller Location Information (CLI) provided is normally integrated into an emergency dispatch center's computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) system, to provide the dispatcher with an onscreen street map that highlights the caller's position and the nearest available emergency responders. For Wireline (land line) E911, the location is an address. For Wireless E911, the location may be a set of coordinates or the physical address of the cellular tower from which the wireless call originated. Not all PSAPs have the Wireless and Wireline systems integrated. As other aspects of the technology of managing emergency response evolve, the PSAPs will need to evolve with them.

Wireline enhanced 911

In all North American jurisdictions, special privacy legislation permits emergency operators to obtain a 9-1-1 caller's telephone number and location information. This information is gathered by mapping the calling phone number to an address in a database. This database function is known as Automatic Location Identification (ALI). The database is generally maintained by the local telephone company, under a contract with the PSAP. Each telephone company has its own standards for the formatting of the database. Most ALI databases have a companion database known as the MSAG, Master Street Address Guide. The MSAG describes address elements including the exact spellings of street names, and street number ranges.

Each telephone company has at least two redundant telephone trunk lines connecting each host office telephone switch to each PSAP. These trunks are either directly connected to the PSAPs, or are connected to a telephone company central switch that intelligently distributes calls to the PSAPs. These special switches are often known as 9-1-1 Selective Routers. The use of 9-1-1 Selective Routers is becoming increasingly more common, as it simplifies the interconnection between newer office switches and the many older PSAP systems.

The effectiveness of this technology may sometimes be affected by the type of telephone infrastructure that the call is routed through. The PSAP may receive calls from the telephone company on older analog trunks, which are similar to regular telephone lines but are formatted to pass the calling party number. The PSAP may also receive calls on older-style digital trunks, which must be specially formatted to pass Automatic Number Identification

Automatic number identification

Automatic number identification is a feature of telephony intelligent network services that permits subscribers to display or capture the billing telephone number of a calling party. In the United States it is part of Inward Wide Area Telephone Service . ANI service was created by AT&T for...

(ANI) information only. Some upgraded PSAPs can receive calls in which the calling party number is already present. The location of the call is drawn from a computer routine which supports telephone company service billing, called the Charge Number Parameter. With some technologies, the PSAP trunking does not pass address information along with the call. Instead, only the calling party number is passed, and the PSAP must use the calling party number to look up the address in the ALI database. The ALI database is secured and separate from the public phone network, by design. Sometimes, on calls using land lines, the originating telephone number may not be passed to the PSAP at all, generally because the number is not in the ALI database. When this happens, the call receiver must confirm the location of the incoming call, and may have to redirect the call to another, more appropriate PSAP. ALI Failure occurs when the phone number is not passed or the phone number passed is not in the ALI database. In most jurisdictions, when ALI database lookup failure occurs, the telephone company has a legal mandate to fix the database entry.

Funding 9-1-1 services

In the United States, 9-1-1 and enhanced 9-1-1 are typically funded based on state laws that impose monthly fees on local and wireless telephone customers. In Canada, a similar fee for service structure is regulated by the federal Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Depending on the location, counties and cities may also levy a fee, which may be in addition to, or in lieu of, the state fee. The fees are collected by local telephone and wireless carriers through monthly surcharges on customer telephone bills. The collected fees are remitted to 9-1-1 administrative bodies, which may be statewide 9-1-1 boards, state public utility commissions, state revenue departments, or local 911 agencies. These agencies disburse the funds to the Public Safety Answering Points for 9-1-1 purposes as specified in the various statutes. Telephone companies

Telephone company

A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...

in the United States, including wireless carriers, may be entitled to apply for and receive reimbursements for costs of their compliance with federal and state laws requiring that their networks be compatible with 9-1-1 and enhanced 9-1-1.

Fees vary widely by locality. They may range from around $.25 per month to $3.00 per month, per line. The average wireless 9-1-1 fee in the United States, based on the fees for each state as published by the National Emergency Number Association

National Emergency Number Association

The National Emergency Number Association is an organization whose mission it is to foster the technological advancement, availability, and implementation of a universal emergency telephone number system in the United States. In carrying out its mission, NENA promotes research, planning, training...

(NENA), is around $0.72. Since monthly fees do not vary based on the customer's usage of the network, the fees are considered, in tax terms, as highly "regressive", i.e., the fees disproportionately burden low-volume users of the public switched network (PSN) as compared with high-volume users. Some states cap the number of lines subject to the fee for large multi-line businesses, thereby shifting more of the fee burden to low-volume single-line residential customers or wireless customers.

Wireless telephones

Dialing 9-1-1 from a mobile phone (Cellular/PCS) in the United States originally connected the call to the state police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

or highway patrol

Highway patrol

A highway patrol is either a police unit created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways, or a detail within an existing local or regional police agency that is primarily concerned with such duties.Duties of highway patrols or traffic...

, instead of the local public safety answering point (PSAP). The caller had to describe an exact location so that the agency could transfer the call to the correct local emergency services. This was a regular problem, because the exact location of the cellular phone isn't normally transmitted with the voice call, and with the exponential growth of cellular use, such calls were frequent occurrences.

In 2000, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

(FCC) issued an order requiring wireless carriers to determine and transmit the location of callers who dial 9-1-1. The FCC set up a phased program: Phase I transmitted the location of the receiving antenna for 9-1-1 calls, while Phase II transmitted the location of the calling telephone. The order set up certain accuracy requirements and other technical details, and milestones for completing the implementation of wireless location services. Subsequent to the FCC's order, many wireless carriers requested waiver

Waiver

A waiver is the voluntary relinquishment or surrender of some known right or privilege.While a waiver is often in writing, sometimes a person's actions can act as a waiver. An example of a written waiver is a disclaimer, which becomes a waiver when accepted...

s of the milestones, and the FCC granted many of them. By mid-2005, the process of Phase II implementation was generally underway, but limited by the complexity of the coordination required from wireless carriers, PSAPs, local telephone companies and other affected government agencies, and the limited funding available to local agencies which need to convert PSAP equipment to display location data (usually on computerized map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

s). Such rules do not apply in Canada.

FCC rules require that all new mobile phones will provide their latitude

Latitude

In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...

and longitude

Longitude

Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....

to emergency operators in the event of a 9-1-1 call. Carriers may choose whether to implement this via Global Positioning System (GPS) chips in each phone, or by means of triangulation

Triangulation

In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly...

between cell tower

Tower

A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....

s. Due to limitations in technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

(of the mobile phone, cellular phone towers, and PSAP equipment), a mobile caller's geographical information may not always be available to the local PSAP. Technologies are currently under development to remedy this situation and improve performance. Although there are now technological ways to obtain the geographical location of the caller, a 9-1-1 caller should try to be aware of the location of the incident about which he or she is calling.

Inactive telephones

In the U.S., Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

rules require every telephone that can access the network to be able to dial 9-1-1, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected (including non-payment

Payment

A payment is the transfer of wealth from one party to another. A payment is usually made in exchange for the provision of goods, services or both, or to fulfill a legal obligation....

) (This only applies to states with a Do Not Disconnect policy in place. Those states must provide a "soft" or "warm" dial tone service, details can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf) On wired (land line) phones, this usually is accomplished by a "soft" dial tone

Dial tone

A dial tone is a telephony signal used to indicate that the telephone exchange is working, has recognized an off-hook, and is ready to accept a call. The tone stops when the first numeral is dialed...

, which sounds normal but will allow only emergency calls. Often, an unused and unpublished phone number will be issued to the line so that it will work properly. With regard to mobile phones, the rules require carriers to connect 9-1-1 calls from any mobile phone, regardless of whether that phone is currently active. The same rules for inactive telephones apply in Canada.

When a cellular phone is deactivated, the phone number is often recycled to a new user, or to a new phone for the same user. The deactivated cell phone will still complete a 911 call (if it has battery power) but the 911 operator will see a specialized number indicating the cell phone has been deactivated. It is usually represented with an area code of (911)-xxx-xxxx. If the call is disconnected, the 911 operator will not be able to connect to the original caller. Also because the cell phone is no longer activated, the 911 operator is often unable to get Phase II information.

Internet telephony

If 9-1-1 is dialed from a commercial Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, depending on how the provider handles such calls, the call may not go anywhere at all, or it may go to a non-emergency number at the public safety answering point associated with the billing or service address of the caller. Because a VoIP adapter can be plugged into any broadband

Broadband

The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...

internet connection, a caller could actually be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home, yet if the call goes to an answering point at all, it would be the one associated with the caller's address and not the actual location of the call. It may never be possible to reliably and accurately identify the location of a VoIP user, even if a GPS receiver is installed in the VoIP adapter, since such phones are normally used indoors, and thus may be unable to get a signal.

In March 2005, commercial Internet telephony provider Vonage

Vonage

Vonage is a publicly held commercial voice over IP network and SIP company that provides telephone service via a broadband connection. The company's name is a play on their motto "Voice-Over-Net-AGE"....

was sued by the Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

attorney general

Attorney General

In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...

, who alleged that their website and other sales and service documentation did not make clear enough that Vonage's provision of 9-1-1 service was not done in the traditional manner. In May 2005 the FCC issued an order requiring VoIP providers to offer 9-1-1 service to all their subscribers within 120 days of the order being published. The order set off anxiety among many VoIP providers, who felt it will be too expensive and require them to adopt solutions that won't support future VoIP products. In Canada, the federal regulators have required Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to provide an equivalent service to the conventional PSAPs, but even these encounter problems with caller location, since their databases rely on company billing addresses.

In May 2010, most VoIP users who dial 9-1-1 are connected to a call center owned by their telephone company, or contracted by them. The operators are most often not trained emergency service providers, and are only there to do their best to connect the caller to the appropriate emergency service. If the call center is able to determine the location of the emergency they try to transfer the caller to the appropriate PSAP. Most often the caller ends up being directed to a PSAP in the general area of the emergency. A 9-1-1 operator at that PSAP must then determine the location of the emergency, and either send help directly, or transfer the caller to the appropriate emergency service. In April 2008, an 18-month-old boy in Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

died after a VoIP provider's 9-1-1 operator had an ambulance dispatched to the address of the boy's family's ISP, which is in Mississauga, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

Nine-One-One vs. Nine-Eleven

When the 9-1-1 system was originally introduced, it was advertised as the "nine-eleven" service. The advertising was changed when concerns were expressed that some types of callers, most notably smaller children, tend to be very literal, and might waste emergency response time trying to find a non-existent "eleven" key on their telephones. Therefore, all references to the telephone number 9-1-1 are now always made as "nine-one-one", and never as "nine-eleven", according to standards outlined by the National Emergency Number Association

National Emergency Number Association

(NENA). Some newspapers and other media require that references to the phone number be formatted as 9-1-1, also a suggested standard by NENA. Since September 11, 2001, "nine-eleven" is used almost exclusively to refer to the September 11, 2001 attacks. In Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, 9-1-1 is known as novecientos once (nine hundred and eleven), or " ", which means "nine eleven" and rarely as "", the literal translation of "nine-one-one".

Dialing patterns

The choice of 9-1-1 as the emergency services number causes dialing-pattern problems in many hotels and businesses. Some hotels, for example, have been known to require dialing "91+" to make an outside call. This leads numbers being dialed such as 91+1+301+555+2368. Since this is a valid telephone number which starts with the digits 911, and is not a call to an emergency service, a timeout becomes necessary on calls dialed literally as 911 to avoid accidental calls to the emergency number. Such prefixes for dialing outside calls are strongly discouraged by telephone companies for this reason.

The need to avoid accidental 9-1-1 calls is also part of the reasoning behind why no area code starts with a "1": the slightly less troublesome "outside line" prefix of "9+" would then cause the same problem: "9+114+555+2368", for example.

This is still a daily issue with long distance calling in places that require an "outside line" prefix, like every business that uses a PBX of any type.
Every long distance number starts "9+1+" and, the possibility of mis-dialing and pressing the "1" twice, still causes a problem.

Requiring an "outside line" prefix also means that to complete an intended call to 9-1-1 from a hotel or business that uses a prefix, a caller would have to know to dial the "outside line" prefix first, rendering the emergency number as 91-9-1-1 or 9-9-1-1. However, some phone systems that require "9" to get an outside line can recognize the dialed pattern 9-1-1 (without a previous "9") and connect to the PSAP without error.

Another possible problem with 9-1-1 dialing is that the international phone code for India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

is "91", and sometimes calls meant for India end up at local emergency dispatch offices if a caller did not first dial the international call prefix 011.

Emergencies across jurisdictions

When a caller dials 9-1-1, the call is routed to the local public safety answering point. However, if the caller is reporting an emergency in another jurisdiction, the dispatchers may or may not know how to contact the proper authorities. The publicly posted phone numbers for most police departments in the U.S. are non-emergency numbers that often specifically instruct callers to dial 9-1-1 in case of emergency, which does not resolve the issue for callers outside of the jurisdiction. In the age of both commercial and personal high speed Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

communications, this issue is becoming an increasing problem.

In the Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

suburbs of Philadelphia, telephone exchanges frequently cross county lines. For example, a 9-1-1 call placed from Warminster

Warminster Township, Pennsylvania

Warminster Township is a township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 32,682 at the 2010 census.The town was named for the town of Warminster in Wiltshire, England.-Geography:...

, which is in Bucks County

Bucks County, Pennsylvania

- Industry and commerce :The boroughs of Bristol and Morrisville were prominent industrial centers along the Northeast Corridor during World War II. Suburban development accelerated in Lower Bucks in the 1950s with the opening of Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second such "Levittown" designed by...

, may be misdirected to the Montgomery County

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of 2010, the population was 799,874, making it the third most populous county in Pennsylvania . The county seat is Norristown.The county was created on September 10, 1784, out of land originally part...

PSAP

Public-safety answering point

because most of Warminster is served by the Hatboro

Hatboro, Pennsylvania

Hatboro is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,360 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hatboro is located at ....

telephone exchange, which is located in Montgomery County. Telford, Pennsylvania

Telford, Pennsylvania

Telford is a borough in Bucks and Montgomery counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The population was 4,872 at the time of the 2010 census.- History :...

sits in both counties and the PSAP must determine in which county the call originated.

NENA has developed the North American 9-1-1 Resource Database which includes the National PSAP Registry. PSAPs can query this database to obtain emergency contact information of a PSAP in another county or state when it receives a call involving another jurisdiction. Online access to this database is provided at no charge for authorized local and state 9-1-1 authorities.

Making calls public

In recent years, 911 calls have aired on news broadcasts.

Ohio Senator

Ohio Senate

The Ohio State Senate is the upper house of the Ohio General Assembly, the legislative body for the U.S. state of Ohio. There are 33 State Senators. The state legislature meets in the state capital, Columbus. The President of the Senate presides over the body when in session, and is currently Tom...

Tom Patton introduced a bill in 2009 which would have banned the broadcasting of 911 calls, requiring the use of transcripts instead. Patton believed that people would be reluctant to make calls because of possible retaliation or threats against those who called. He intended to seek proof of this idea to satisfy those who did not believe him, or that broadcasting 911 calls hurt investigations. The Ohio Fraternal Order of Police supported the bill because broadcasts of 911 calls just "sensationalized

Sensationalism

Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers...

". Ohio Association of Broadcasters director Chris Merritt said government did not have the right to decide how public records were used. Other opponents of such a ban point out that recordings hold dispatchers accountable and show when they are not doing their jobs properly, in a way transcripts cannot.

A bill signed by Alabama

Alabama

governor Bob Riley

Bob Riley

Bob Riley may refer to:* Bob Riley, 52nd Governor of Alabama* Bob C. Riley, acting Governor of Arkansas for 11 days in 1975* Bob Riley , sports car designer and founder of Riley Technologies...

on April 27, 2010 requires a court order

Court order

A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...

before recordings can be made public. Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

and Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

also had bills banning the broadcasts. Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

and Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

already banned the broadcasts.

In April 2011, the Tennessee Senate

Tennessee Senate

The Tennessee Senate is the upper house of the Tennessee state legislature, which is known formally as the Tennessee General Assembly.The Tennessee Senate, according to the state constitution of 1870, is composed of 33 members, one-third the size of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Senators...

passed a bill banning broadcasts of calls unless the caller gave permission.

A North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

law will require news media to use either transcripts or distorted voices.

GPS locator

According to FCC rule, by 2018 all phone handsets have to be GPS-capable to better aid in pin-pointing the location of 911 calls. The rule also proposes using Geolocation software

Geolocation software

In computing, geolocation software is used to deduce the geolocation of another party. For example, on the Internet, one geolocation approach is to identify the subject party's IP address, then determine what country , organization, or user the IP address has been assigned to, and finally,...

to determine the location of VOIP lines. It's still unclear what the sunset deadline for using old non-GPS phones.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Locating callers automatically

Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)

Wireline enhanced 911

Funding 9-1-1 services

Wireless telephones

Inactive telephones

Internet telephony

Nine-One-One vs. Nine-Eleven

Dialing patterns

Emergencies across jurisdictions

Making calls public

GPS locator

See also

External links