Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 20:34:28 GMT
From: schuh@mdd.comm.mot.com (Michael Schuh)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: 911 For Everything (was 911 on Jerry Springer Show)
Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division - Seattle, WA
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 703, Message 2 of 12

In article <telecom12.682.9@eecs.nwu.edu>, kaufman@xenon.stanford.edu
(Marc T. Kaufman) writes:

> In article <telecom12.673.5@eecs.nwu.edu> heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com (Ron
> Heiby) writes:

>> We have been told, through the town newsletter, that we
>> should use 911 *any* time we want fire/police/ambulance dispatch.

>> [Moderator's Note: Continue arguing that 911 is *only* for dire
>> emergencies when immediate police intervention is required.  PAT]

> 911 is for whatever the local agency says its for.

> [Moderator's Note: You are incorrect in saying '911 is for whatever
> the local agency says it is for ...'  In Illinois at least, the state
> legislature passed the '911 Enabling Act' many years ago which
> directed local municipalities to install 911 as promptly as possible
> in cooperation with the local telco using available technology. The
> Act went on to define the purpose of 911 as a method of communicating
> EMERGENCY circumstances to the appropriate EMERGENCY RESPONSE agency
> or agencies within the community. A stolen car or a home which was
> burglarized several hours previous to being discovered are not what I
> would term emergencies.  PAT]

Did the Illinois act *limit* 911 traffic to "emergencies"?  In
Seattle, the fire and police departments have specifically stated that
911 is to be used for any intitial call to them.  I was once directed
to call 911 as part of a burglary followup, being told to tell the
operator that I was following up on a burglary report.  When I did, I
was immediately transferred (in what seemed like a routine manner) to
someone else.

The 911 system serves as a first point of contact for just about
anything that is "abnormal" in our urban environment.  In Seattle,
this includes oil spills (which get forwarded to both the Seattle fire
department and their small fleet as well as to the Coast Guard and
EPA), downed traffic signs (which go to the engineering department
*and* to the police if a traffic problem is created), hackers
intruding into local UNIX sites, and just about anything else.  Give
the public *one* number to call and then train the operators to sort
out the calls.  This is probably more efficient than scattering
trouble calls across several phone numbers (with some number of calls
going to the wrong number) and a multitude of agencies.  (And remember
that one person's mild complaint is another person's emergency.  If
the various calls are brought together, then similar calls from an
area can be correlated with each other, giving a better picture of the
situation.)  At any rate, it seems to work rather well.


Mike Schuh   schuh@mdd.comm.mot.com
Motorola Mobile Data (I think that's what we're called this week...)


[Moderator's Note: I do not think it said that *only* emergencies
could be called in to 911, but based on how our police authorities in
Chicago are always saying that 911 is overloaded with calls causing
delays in answering real emergencies at times, it would seem the
intent is to limit it in that way.   PAT]