When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?

In article <[email protected]>, Jer <[email protected]> wrote:

>All true, but the maintenance-free nature of the newer gel-cell batts,
>despite the shorter life spans, are thermally more stable, occupy less
>space and can be recycled. VRLA batts require regular hands-on
>maintenance, are comparatively huge, and cost more to dispose of even
>after their longer-term life.

The VRLAs are the "maintanence free" ones. Many of the telecom folks are
going back to wet cells (if they have the space), as they have a lower
life-cycle cost (at least for the purchase/maintanence cycle - I don't know of
differences in disposal costs).

---

› See More: When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?

ptw wrote:
> Jer wrote:
>
>> Having a sister who's an operator, this is easy for me to answer...
>> in this situation, forget 911, dial "0", when the operator answers,
>> explain that you have an emergency and need to speak to law
>> enforcement for medical assistance in your mother's location. They
>> will make every attempt to connect you to the appropriate authority
>> and will stay on the line until that happens. Operators have been
>> providing this level of service for many years and are glad to help
>> any way they can under these circumstances.
>>
>
> How do you do that with a cell phone and/or VoIP phone?


I dial "0" from cell phones regularly for call assistance. I am
clueless about VoIP phones.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Don S wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Jer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>All true, but the maintenance-free nature of the newer gel-cell batts,
>>despite the shorter life spans, are thermally more stable, occupy less
>>space and can be recycled. VRLA batts require regular hands-on
>>maintenance, are comparatively huge, and cost more to dispose of even
>>after their longer-term life.
>
>
> The VRLAs are the "maintanence free" ones. Many of the telecom folks are
> going back to wet cells (if they have the space), as they have a lower
> life-cycle cost (at least for the purchase/maintanence cycle - I don't know of
> differences in disposal costs).


And here all this time I thought they were using VRLA to refer to the
wet cells. As I recall, wet cells have the higher overall cost,
including disposal, but are preferred for long-duration drain times for
the rated load, ie. CO. I presume "long" would = >8 hours. Cell sites,
with their limited spaces, aren't usually expected to need long drain
times, typically <3 hours, often have neighbour sites for overlapping
coverage, and portable gen sets are usually close by for more intense
times. I recall my buds talking about how Cingular eventually
dispatched 200+ field people towing gen sets to Florida during their
spat of inclement weather last year from other areas. They said it only
takes ten minutes to plug one in and come with a ~week of fuel on board.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Jer wrote:

> ptw wrote:
>
>> Jer wrote:
>>
>>> Having a sister who's an operator, this is easy for me to answer...
>>> in this situation, forget 911, dial "0", when the operator answers,
>>> explain that you have an emergency and need to speak to law
>>> enforcement for medical assistance in your mother's location. They
>>> will make every attempt to connect you to the appropriate authority
>>> and will stay on the line until that happens. Operators have been
>>> providing this level of service for many years and are glad to help
>>> any way they can under these circumstances.
>>>
>>
>> How do you do that with a cell phone and/or VoIP phone?
>
>
>
> I dial "0" from cell phones regularly for call assistance. I am
> clueless about VoIP phones.
>

VoIP phones have NO "opearator" to call. (You get a recording.)

"Rick Merrill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Jer wrote:
>
>> ptw wrote:
>>
>>> Jer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Having a sister who's an operator, this is easy for me to answer...
>>>> in this situation, forget 911, dial "0", when the operator answers,
>>>> explain that you have an emergency and need to speak to law
>>>> enforcement for medical assistance in your mother's location. They
>>>> will make every attempt to connect you to the appropriate authority
>>>> and will stay on the line until that happens. Operators have been
>>>> providing this level of service for many years and are glad to help
>>>> any way they can under these circumstances.
>>>>
>>>
>>> How do you do that with a cell phone and/or VoIP phone?
>>
>>
>>
>> I dial "0" from cell phones regularly for call assistance. I am
>> clueless about VoIP phones.
>>
>
> VoIP phones have NO "opearator" to call. (You get a recording.)

On Sipgate you don't get anything. Here in the UK the number for the
operator is 100 not 0 - all phone numbers start with 0 so dialling 0 means
the system is just waiting for the rest of the number. Sipgate uses 10000
for a test number so dialling 100 won't get you anywhere either..!

Ivor

Ivor Jones wrote:
> "Rick Merrill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>>Jer wrote:
>>
>>
>>>ptw wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Having a sister who's an operator, this is easy for me to answer...
>>>>>in this situation, forget 911, dial "0", when the operator answers,
>>>>>explain that you have an emergency and need to speak to law
>>>>>enforcement for medical assistance in your mother's location. They
>>>>>will make every attempt to connect you to the appropriate authority
>>>>>and will stay on the line until that happens. Operators have been
>>>>>providing this level of service for many years and are glad to help
>>>>>any way they can under these circumstances.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>How do you do that with a cell phone and/or VoIP phone?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I dial "0" from cell phones regularly for call assistance. I am
>>>clueless about VoIP phones.
>>>
>>
>>VoIP phones have NO "opearator" to call. (You get a recording.)
>
>
> On Sipgate you don't get anything. Here in the UK the number for the
> operator is 100 not 0 - all phone numbers start with 0 so dialling 0 means
> the system is just waiting for the rest of the number. Sipgate uses 10000
> for a test number so dialling 100 won't get you anywhere either..!
>
> Ivor

Why wouldn't dialing 100 get me anywhere? Don't they do interdigit
timing like all the telcos do?


--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

"Jer" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ivor Jones wrote:

[snip]

>> On Sipgate you don't get anything. Here in the UK the number for the
>> operator is 100 not 0 - all phone numbers start with 0 so dialling 0
>> means the system is just waiting for the rest of the number. Sipgate
>> uses 10000 for a test number so dialling 100 won't get you anywhere
>> either..!
>>
>> Ivor
>
> Why wouldn't dialing 100 get me anywhere? Don't they do interdigit
> timing like all the telcos do?

Possibly, if anything was allocated to 100, but it isn't..!

Ivor

Infone is great!
I highly recommend Infone. It's more like a concierge service with all
the extras they provide and cheaper than VZW's pathetic info service,
that has failed me a couple of times, when I needed it most. Wrong
number and couldn't find the right city

The Infone operater will stick with you until every lookup possibilty
is exhausted.

They also give directions and a bunch of other included services.
They spend, IIRC, up to 15 minutes helping to find the correct
number/info.

The only hassle is setting up credit card billing, since they operate
outside your carrier's billing system. But it's worth the one time
setup inconvenience. They use to offer 5 free lookups. I got 10 but
that's no longer available.

Ther's also an Infone 800 CS number that doesn't cost if you need to
work out a billing problem.

-
David

"Carey Gregory" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Jer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I'm also now wondering who's going to take the hit for hotels when
>>a
>>tenant plugs their internet phone into the wall jack. The
>>hi-speed
>>internet service at some hotels requires the tenant to
>>occasionally
>>re-certify their in-room internet service via an auth code
>>provided by
>>the front desk when necessary. And it's not always free.
>
> So what? The technical issues of mapping a hotel connection to
> the hotel
> and room number are trivial compared to, say, determining a cell
> phone's
> location. Internet cafes, libraries, and all sorts of public
> access points
> will have the same issue. I guess they'll either have to figure
> it out or
> quit providing VoIP to those locations.
>
> VoIP providers got into the business of providing public telephone
> service,
> but they didn't bother providing the whole package and you see the
> results.
> It's easy to undercut the other guys when you're allowed to skip
> the hard
> parts. Well, now they can't, and it's about time. All the FCC is
> saying is
> they have to quit being half-baked telephone companies and become
> real ones.
>

Don't you think that if someone keeled over in a library, a regular
landline will be available? When you are in a public place, you do
not have the only telephone around. If I have an emergency in a
hotel, I am going to use the house phone even if it costs $5.00 to
make a call.

--
Earl F. Parrish

In article <[email protected]>, Tony P. <[email protected]> writes:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> In article <[email protected]>, DevilsPGD <[email protected]> writes:
>> > In message <[email protected]> [email protected]
>> > (Gordon Burditt) wrote:
>> >
>> >>Example: I'm talking on the phone to my mother (in another state),
>> >>she stops talking, groans, says HELP a couple of times, drops the
>> >>phone, then silence. Assuming I think she might have just had a
>> >>heart attack, how do I get help for her?
>> >
>> > My understanding is that if you dial 911 they'll eventually be able to
>> > get you though to the right place. Maybe.
>>
>> In my job I work closely with 911 dispatch centers across the country. I can
>> tell you that if you try this, if they're not very busy they may try to help
>> you. But it will probably require that they dial 411 information to get the
>> police/fire phone number for the area where the victim is. They may be able to
>> do an online search, or they may be able to send an NLETS (national law
>> enforcement tracking system) administrative message asking for the number. But
>> sadly our "first responders" are NOT networked together very well. I blame the
>> beaurocrats who like to talk big about how important our first responders are,
>> but fail to pony up the funds to make it possible.
>
> NLETS terminates in just about every state police HQ. From there it's
> distributed to the municipalities. For instance, in Rhode Island the
> NLETS connection passed through to municipalities and the AG's office as
> RILETS.

Sure, but to my knowledge it doesn't give them real-time communication
ability adequate to the purpose suggested above. NLETS is more of a database
search utility. You can see if John Schmoe who you've just pulled over is
listed on Arizona's or Maine's wanted lists or whatever. And I know you can
send an admin message to Podunk Police Dept **IF** you can look up their ORI
number. Whether Podunk sees your message and responds to it before Gordon's
mother expires is pretty unrealistic.
My only point is that it's probably faster just to dial 411 yourself
and ask for the number for Podunk Police.