Cell Phones Problematic for 911 Calls

[Ghost.]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireles...?se=yahoorefer

Originally Posted by USA Today

Darlene Dukes struggled to speak as she called 911 from her cellphone. She could barely tell the operator her address: 602 Wales Drive.

The operator, trying to understand Dukes, sent an ambulance to Wells Street in Atlanta— 28 miles from Dukes' apartment in Johns Creek, a suburb north of the city.

Paramedics finally reached the stricken woman almost an hour after her call on Aug. 2, 2008. They were too late. Forty minutes after arriving at the hospital, Dukes, 39, the mother of two boys, died of a blood clot in her lungs.

That cellphone call was critical. If Dukes had called from a land-line telephone, her address would have immediately popped up on the 911 operator's screen, leaving no room for confusion.

Dukes' case is like many others across the nation. For the millions of Americans giving up their land lines in favor of cellphones, dialing 911 may no longer mean a quick response. It can lead to misrouted calls, delayed information about the location of the caller and, most important, a slower emergency response.

"Lots of people are dying each year," says David Aylward, director of Comcare Emergency Response Alliance, a non-profit advocacy group. "We're sending in responders where they don't know information about the person they are responding to. We're sending them in looking for someone when they should know where they are exactly."

911 built for land lines
The nation's 911 emergency response system, built in 1967, was based on the expectation that calls for help would come from land-line telephones, says Paul Linnee, a consultant for emergency communications. Now, with more people using cellphones exclusively, calls that bounce from tower to tower pose significant challenges.

Cellphone users "almost assume that they are going to be located — and that's not a fair assumption," says Brian Fontes, CEO of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), which focuses on 911 emergency communications.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 20.2% of U.S. households had only wireless phones in 2008, up almost 3 percentage points from 2007. Today, the Federal Communications Commission estimates a third of 911 calls are from cellphones.

Linnee says even the most advanced 911 systems do not allow a dispatcher to get a specific street address for a wireless call. About 93% of the nation's 911 centers have technology that lets the dispatcher immediately see the caller's phone number and the location of the cell tower that picks up the call. But the dispatcher must request the caller's GPS coordinates from the wireless carrier that operates the tower. This process can take several seconds and may yield a location as far as 300 meters from the caller, not much help in a high-rise apartment.

The FCC requires that carriers be able to locate a caller, within 300 meters, for 95% of their calls in each state. A proposal pending before the FCC calls for carriers to be able to locate 95% of their calls in each county.

Misrouting common
Cellphone calls are commonly misrouted to the wrong 911 center, a problem not addressed by the FCC. In Jefferson County, N.Y., just across Lake Ontario from Canada, Joseph Plummer, director of the county's fire and emergency management, says dispatchers occasionally get calls from Canada.

Unlike land-line calls, which are sent to the 911 center for their jurisdiction, wireless calls can hit the wrong tower, further slowing the response.
Misrouting also happens in metropolitan areas where multiple jurisdictions are bunched together. In Cook County, Ill., there are more than 100 different 911 centers, Linnee says, making it extremely common for calls to hit towers outside of the proper jurisdiction.

Problems run deeper still in areas where wireless carriers and 911 centers have not adopted the latest technologies. According to NENA, 7% of the nation's 911 centers are able to obtain only the location of the tower that picks up the wireless call and are not equipped to request GPS coordinates for the caller's location. More than 100 counties still have only this so-called Basic 911 service. Cellphone callers in these counties are unlikely to summon emergency services unless they can orally tell the operator where they are.

Improvements are coming, however. This month, a 911 center in Waterloo, Iowa, serving Black Hawk County, became the first in the country with the capacity to receive text messages.

Last week, NENA announced the formation of a consortium of emergency response organizations and wireless experts to secure federal stimulus funds to upgrade 911 operations by using broadband technology. Patrick Halley, director of government affairs for NENA, says the goal is to allow callers to send video and text messages to 911 centers.

In the year since Dukes' death, the town where she lived, Johns Creek, has partnered with the neighboring town of Sandy Springs to install a joint 911 center, says Noah Reiter, assistant city manager for Sandy Springs. The new $3.5 million system, partly inspired by Dukes' death, will launch Sept. 1.

Thoughts?

[Radio Storm]

They generally ignore silly pranksters, but usually if the 911 call is coming from a cell phone and the situation is real and at least moderately urgent, they cannot trace the location of where it's coming from, but they can go to the telephone service provider, get the address of where the customer lives, and they'll go there. They've done that on me before.

Sad that often that fails to happen when it's a life or death situation...

[Persona]

Not really related, but when my phone is locked, you can still make emergency calls if I move the toggle down and hit it twice. I've done that accidentally a couple of times. Most of the time I catch it, but I've actually made a full-on call before. The police department then called after I had (accidentally) hung up and made sure there was no emergency. I felt terrible but they were nice about it (both times )

[Natatha]

Originally Posted by J-Rod

They generally ignore silly pranksters, but usually if the 911 call is coming from a cell phone and the situation is real and at least moderately urgent, they cannot trace the location of where it's coming from, but they can go to the telephone service provider, get the address of where the customer lives, and they'll go there. They've done that on me before.

Sad that often that fails to happen when it's a life or death situation...

The 911 Centers in Wisconsin, or at least in my immediate area are all equipped with "Enhanced 911 Equipment." That makes it so they can track it to the tower, and usually pinpoint the location.

As for the technical, unable to pinpoint the location stuff, I have NO idea how it works, but we have yet to lose someone due to a cell phone call. Maybe we're just lucky, or maybe we just have a better system than was reported here... I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by lukannon

Not really related, but when my phone is locked, you can still make emergency calls if I move the toggle down and hit it twice. I've done that accidentally a couple of times. Most of the time I catch it, but I've actually made a full-on call before. The police department then called after I had (accidentally) hung up and made sure there was no emergency. I felt terrible but they were nice about it (both times )

YOU BASTARD! That's for Emergencies only!!!!

Don't feel too bad, though... That's their job, and most of the time they're happy to have it not be an actual emergency, or talk to someone who isn't screaming at them, or unable to be understood due to emotions.

Originally Posted by Alex.

Thoughts?

Sad article... I can't imagine the shit the dispatcher is going through... Even though it wasn't, it makes you feel like it was your fault, like you didn't do something right... I just hope (s)he realizes that there was NOTHING more to be done.

Misrouting common
-- In response to receiving calls from Canada, if they are any sort of Dispatch Center, they would have ties to the Canadian authorities, and have the ability to transfer the call there...




Unlike land-line calls, which are sent to the 911 center for their jurisdiction, wireless calls can hit the wrong tower, further slowing the response.
Misrouting also happens in metropolitan areas where multiple jurisdictions are bunched together. In Cook County, Ill., there are more than 100 different 911 centers, Linnee says, making it extremely common for calls to hit towers outside of the proper jurisdiction.


--This has actually happened to me a couple times, and neither time was an emergency, but both times the other Center (Chippewa) would contact mine, (Eau Claire), to get the information across... But in both cases, either one could have handled the issue.

--Most of the time, in those areas, they are areas that are jurisdictional grey areas, you should be able to get either county into your response... At least a Law Enforcement response, regardless of jurisdiction.

Improvements are coming, however. This month, a 911 center in Waterloo, Iowa, serving Black Hawk County, became the first in the country with the capacity to receive text messages.
--This, however, is stupid. No center should EVER have that... That will be prank-heaven.



Last week, NENA announced the formation of a consortium of emergency response organizations and wireless experts to secure federal stimulus funds to upgrade 911 operations by using broadband technology. Patrick Halley, director of government affairs for NENA, says the goal is to allow callers to send video and text messages to 911 centers.



-- Not sure how, let alone WHY you would want to send texts... Videos I can understand, but still wouldn't want to take the time to send it... Just call, give the 43, and move on.


In the year since Dukes' death, the town where she lived, Johns Creek, has partnered with the neighboring town of Sandy Springs to install a joint 911 center, says Noah Reiter, assistant city manager for Sandy Springs. The new $3.5 million system, partly inspired by Dukes' death, will launch Sept. 1.
-- If anyone happens to get more information here, I'd like to read about it.

/post

[Persona]

Originally Posted by Natatha

YOU BASTARD! That's for Emergencies only!!!!

Don't feel too bad, though... That's their job, and most of the time they're happy to have it not be an actual emergency, or talk to someone who isn't screaming at them, or unable to be understood due to emotions.

I knowww . I really did feel bad, and I was very apologetic. Both times the operators were very understanding however, and the first one said it wasn't a problem at all. I'm really glad I didn't cause any strife or anything.

[Natatha]

Originally Posted by lukannon

I knowww . I really did feel bad, and I was very apologetic. Both times the operators were very understanding however, and the first one said it wasn't a problem at all. I'm really glad I didn't cause any strife or anything.

Believe me, it's really... "Fun" when my old dial-up connection would call 911...

[Persona]

Originally Posted by Natatha

Believe me, it's really... "Fun" when my old dial-up connection would call 911...

Whaatttt? haha, I had no idea that could happen. I guess it makes sense, but I've never thought about it.

[byt4]

Originally Posted by Natatha

Believe me, it's really... "Fun" when my old dial-up connection would call 911...

My neighbors old cordless phone would do this when the battery would start getting low. Once while they were out of town someone left the phone off the base and it called 911. I was surprised when i saw an ambulance, firetruck, and police car all screaming down my street. Turns out they called back and no one answered so they had to assume that the person was unconscious or couldn't reach the phone. Good thing our neighbors had us feeding their dog and gave us a key or they would of came home to a busted in door. I guess this used to happen all the time with certain cordless phones according to one of the firefighters

[NaFenn]

unfortunatley that happens in australia aswell with "000", but it can be alot worse.

for example: I Live in Belmont (WA), there is also a suburb of the same name in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria... which is a little but of a walk from AU (about 3000km). There was a situation a while back here where there was a crash up the road, and police were sent to Belmont WA, and NSW... and unfortunatley - the Call Center is in the Eastern States (i belive)... so if its a street in perth, that everyone in perth could know well (eg: Hay Street), which people on the other side of AU may not know well.

[Sparticus]

Like 99% of cell phones have some kind of GPS in them, so why can't that just use that?

[Persona]

Originally Posted by Sparticus

Like 99% of cell phones have some kind of GPS in them, so why can't that just use that?

I think they can, but it's tricky because they have to get in touch with the service provider. I think it's somewhere else in the thread...

[The Raven.]

The problem is, they will have to come up with a fix since more and more people use cell phones and have no landlines.

[valkyrie.]

Whenever I'm babysitting or in some other situation where I'm unfamiliar with my surroundings, I always try to locate a landline phone just in case of an emergency. You might as well be safer and use a landline just so you know for sure the operator will see your address.

[Fatal Injection]

I think in a way this is how technology screws us over. I mean, we're moving forward with the cellphones but when it comes to things like 911, they can't find your location just because you're on your cell. But with cellphone costs & landline costs people just decide to cancel their land lines and move on.

I think it's horrible the woman died when she could have probably been saved. That must be horrible on the family right now.

I hope they get to it and fix things to catch up with cellphone info.

[Jason S]

Land lines are best since even if you cant talk they can get your address from the Enhanced-911 system...its sad she died but as any one knows that cell phones cant alsways be traced (unlike what we see in tv!) and the connection isnt always good either. plus if she is in some distress from her medical condition it could make very hard for a 911 dispatcher to assist her
it goes to show its not a perfect system but look at how many ppl are assisted daily with such a system