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From: davidb@pacer.com (David Barts)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Enhanced 911
Message-ID: <5143@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 90 15:44:39 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 171, Message 3 of 9

Monday (12 March) an article appeared in the [Seattle Times] about the
impact of PBX's on Enhanced 911.  I don't have the complete text of
the article with me, but it was quite long and rambled a bit so I'll
summarize:

Basically, a six-year-old child called 911 for a medical emergency (I
believe his/her mother was choking).  The child was panicked and
couldn't remember the address of his/her apartment, which normally
wouldn't be a problem because that part of King County has E911
service.

But the apartment complex was served by a PBX owned by a company
several miles away.  The address that came up on the E911 display was
that of the PBX company, not the location of the emergency.

Fortunately, the 911 dispatcher figured out that the address on the
E911 display was not correct, looked up the company's business number,
and found the correct address of the apartment.  (This time.  I could
easily imagine a tired or overworked operator sending an ambulance to
the address of the PBX owner.)

Even then, the complex involved had several buildings and there was
some question as to which one had the emergency.

Naturally, if the tenants had been served directly by Pacific
Northwest Bell instead of the PBX, E911 would have been able to supply
the correct address down to the apartment number.  The article
mentioned that apartment PBX's were becoming increasingly common and
this problem would also occur at many businesses (although I'd assume
there would be less chance of a frightened, confused child making a
911 call from an office).

 From what I remember of previous discussions in this group, I get the
impression that fixing E911 to handle this problem would be difficult.

(Also mentioned was that not all of King County has E911 service yet.)


David Barts			Pacer Corporation
davidb@pacer.uucp		...!uunet!pilchuck!pacer!davidb