Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!spool.mu.edu!telecom-request From: blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Cellular 911 Calls Message-ID: Date: 15 May 91 17:13:15 GMT Article-I.D.: eecs.telecom11.365.10 Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: pro-party BBS, Corpus Christi, TCX (+[+1 512 882-1899] Lines: 53 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 365, Message 10 of 10 > [Moderator's Note In many large urban areas 911 won't work correctly > from cell phones ... Here in Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems Area (Corpus Christi, TX) SWBMS promotes FREE 911 Calls and urges you to use the service. A call to 911 gets you a Southwestern Bell (RBOC not Mobile Systems I THINK she Identifies herself as Southwestern Bell) operator who seems to have no idea you dialed 911. You end up having to ask her to connect you to 911 ... she does, and then spends about three to five seconds telling the 911 operator you are a cellular caller (but NOT your cellular number) and giving her operator number. This whole process adds almost fifteen seconds to completing the call, and I find that ANNOYING if not dangerous. FYI I toured the 911 dispatch center a couple of months ago. Three monitors at each dispatch station ... a Computer Aided Dispatch system with a huge X-windowed monitor that had three active windows on it ... one showing the calls that the operator (different person) had taken, one showing available units and taking assignments if who got which calls and one for querying licence plate records. The second (looked like CGA) was associated with the trunked 800 mhz radio system ... showed units in that dispatchers channels and who was transmitting ... the third was off. The 911 Answer station was a regular phone with a rectangular AT&T box about the size of a digital clock that I assume showed the incoming phone number ... Corpus does not yet have the service that gives addresses as well (though we have been paying taxes for it for some time) and that it takes as long as 20 minutes to call SW Bell in San Antonio to get an address. The whole dispatch station is protected by a halon fire protection system.. when the alarm goes off they operators and dispatchers have a couple of minutes to evacuate the dispatch area before the (apparently deadly) halon is released. while evacuated dispatch continues over walkie talkies from the parking lot but 911 calls go un answered. As a side note, I was on a ride-along last week and the entire dispatch system crashed for four plus hours ... they were using scratch pads to dispatch, and couldn't look up license plates and identification information. The radios still worked though the officer I was with said they had been down (radios) last week for an extended period. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE