911 and Cellular Phones
For many Americans, the ability to call 911
for help in an emergency is one of the main
reasons they own a cellular phone. Other
wireless 911 calls come from “Good Samaritans”
reporting traffic accidents, crimes or other
emergencies. Prompt delivery of these and
other wireless 911 calls to public safety
organizations benefits the public by promoting
safety of life and property.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
has taken a number of steps to increase public
safety by encouraging and coordinating development
of a nationwide, seamless communications
system for emergency services that includes
the provision of location information for
wireless 911 calls. Because wireless 911
location information will not be available
everywhere immediately, it is important for
consumers calling 911 from wireless phones
to remember the following:
- Tell the emergency operator the location
of the emergency right away.
- Give the emergency operator your wireless
phone number so that if the call gets disconnected,
the operator can call you back.
- If your wireless phone is not “initialized”
(i.e., you do not have a contract for service
with a wireless service provider), and
your
emergency call gets disconnected, you must
call the emergency operator back because
he or she does not have your telephone
number
and cannot contact you.
To help public safety personnel allocate
emergency resources, learn and use the designated
number in your state for highway accidents
or other non life-threatening incidents.
Often, states reserve specific numbers for
these types of incidents. For example, “*CSP”
is the number used for reporting Road Rage
to the Colorado State Patrol. The number
to call for non life-threatening incidents
in your state can be found in the front of
your phone book.
Refrain from programming your phone to automatically
dial 911 when one button, such as the “9”
key, is pressed. Unintentional wireless 911 calls, which often occur when auto-dial keys are
inadvertently pressed, cause problems for
emergency services call centers. If your
wireless phone came preprogrammed with the
auto-dial 911 feature already turned on,
turn off this feature. Check your user manual
to find out how. Lock your keypad when you’re
not using your wireless phone. This action
also prevents accidental calls to 911.
FCC’s Wireless 911 Initiatives:
In addition to other efforts to promote coordinated
emergency services, the FCC has adopted wireless
911 rules. These rules are aimed at improving
the reliability of wireless 911 services
and identifying the location of wireless
911 callers to enable emergency response
personnel to provide assistance to them much
more quickly. The FCC’s wireless 911 rules
apply to all mobile wireless licensees.
- The FCC’s Basic 911 rules:
- Require wireless carriers to transmit all
911 calls to a Public Safety Answering
Point
(PSAP), regardless of whether the caller
subscribes to the carrier’s service or
not.
- Phase I Enhanced 911 (E911) Rules
- Require wireless carriers, within six months
of a valid request by a PSAP, to provide
the PSAP with the telephone number of
the
originator of a wireless 911 call and
the
location of the cell site or base station
transmitting the call.
Phase II E911 Rules
- The FCC’s Phase II E911 Rules:
- Require wireless carriers, within six months
of a valid request by a PSAP, to begin
providing
more precise location information to
PSAPs,
specifically, the latitude and longitude
of the caller. This information must
meet
FCC accuracy standards – generally, it
must
be accurate to within 50-300 meters (depending
on the type of technology used).
The FCC’s Wireless 911 rules are being implemented
in stages; they are not all immediately effective.
The specific conditions and schedules of
Phase I, Phase II, and the revised schedules
for nationwide carriers are located on the
FCC Web site, www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced. Wireless
carriers may comply with certain FCC E911
rules by ensuring that 95% of their customer's
handsets are E911-capable (also referred
to as location-capable). The FCC’s E911 rules
do not specify precisely how carriers may
achieve this compliance. At their discretion,
some carriers may provide various incentives
or policies to encourage customers without
location-capable phones to obtain new, location-capable
phones. For instance, some carriers may offer
location-capable handsets to you at a discount.
Some carriers may choose to adopt policies
that prevent you from reactivating older
handsets that don’t have E911 capability,
or may adopt various other measures. The
FCC’s E911 rules do not require that a carrier
adopt any particular one of these measures
as an incentive or policy when seeking to
encourage its customers to obtain location-capable
phones.
Even if a carrier chooses to decline to reactivate
your handset if it is not location-capable,
the FCC requires that it still be capable
of making 911 calls (only). Note, however,
that if you use a deactivated handset to
make a 911 call, the carrier may not be able
to accurately and automatically determine
your location. And, if you decide to replace
your handset, you should always check with
your service provider to determine the new
handset's E911 capabilities, as well as whether
the replacement handset offers the same coverage
as compared to your current handset.
Unintentional 911 calls placed from wireless phones clog the phone
lines that deliver 911 calls to Public Safety
Answering Points (PSAPs), which handle 911
calls, and put the PSAPs’ ability to respond
to real emergencies at risk. Here’s how the
problem occurs, and what you can do to avoid
making an accidental 911 call.
Many older wireless phones are equipped with
a feature designed to dial 911 automatically
in an emergency. For example, when one key
– typically the “9” – is held down for a
few seconds, the phone automatically dials
911. The person using the phone may not even
be aware of the feature or that it has been
pre-activated by the manufacturer or retailer.
Accidental dialing of 911 can occur even
more frequently with open-face design phones
that may bump against other objects in a
purse, briefcase, or pocket. Newer wireless
phones generally either do not have the capability
to automatically dial 911, or require the
user to activate the feature to make it work.
Accidental 911 calls cause problems for
the
public safety community, which must spend
time and resources to determine whether a
911 call is real or accidental. A 911 operator
must stay on the line to make this determination.
If no one is on the line, the operator may
need to disconnect the call and call the
user back to determine whether the call is
real or accidental. If no one answers, the
operator may spend even more time trying
to reach the caller, or even dispatch emergency
services to help the caller. These efforts
waste resources and divert scarce public
safety personnel from other 911 calls reporting
real emergencies.
Avoiding Accidental 9-1-1 Calls
- You can help reduce accidental 911 calls
by:
- Locking keypads using the keypad lock feature.
Keypad locks, some of which can be programmed
to activate automatically, prevent a
phone
from responding to keystrokes until you
unlock
the keypad using a short combination
of key
presses.
-
Turning off the 911 auto-dial feature,
if
your phone has one. To determine whether
your phone has this feature and how to
turn
it off, check your user manual or the
manufacturer’s
web site, or call your service provider.
- Refraining from programming your wireless
phone to speed or automatically dial
911.
Many major wireless phone manufacturers
and
wireless service providers are also taking
steps to help solve this problem. For example,
wireless service providers have requested
that manufacturers not offer the 911 auto-dial
feature on new phones, or turn it off prior
to shipment.
source: FCC
