Dad Rages Against Comcast 911 > They shouldn't be able to call it "9-1-1"

They shouldn't be able to call it "9-1-1"

Better be careful "testing" your city's 911 system.

Turns out I "didn't" test our city 9-1-1 system, but rather a desk Sgt's answering machine.

That's not the point... Do you have a landline ?? If so, why don't you "test" that 911 works a few different times of the day. Let me know how it goes.

I have never read about instances of POTS 9-1-1 ringing into the janator closet of a police station. If I read about widespread and systemic problems of POTS 9-1-1 not being routed properly, I would certainly test it.

If the 9-1-1 call center operator gets pissed because I took 10 seconds of their time, to bad, let them fine me. I'm forced to pay into the system...I'm going to know whether it works like it's supposed to.

10 seconds might not be a problem, call 10 times, you will be going to jail.

he stated he tested his 911 once after a report, someone else jumped the gun and suggested he try it 10times to see what happens.

reply to dispatcher21
Exactly. This isn't about harrassing and disrupting 9-1-1 operators (does it work yet, does it work yet, does it work yet). It's a 1 time thing for a provider (in my case Vonage) who had shown a pattern of not properly forwarding 9-1-1 calls.

reply to Ebolla
My point was, some things you don't or shouldn't "test". As scary as it is, you have to trust that it just works. How many people test a fire sprinkler system ?? How 'bout draining the oil from their car to see if the oil light comes on ??

When 911 service was first started, did it work 100% ?? I suspect not... And we're dealing with POTS back then. If 911 is of any importance to anyone, take your chances with VOIP and similar phone services. They're still in their infancy and still have bugs to work out. You'd think E911 would be an absolute priority though.

WRONG!

Of course fire sprinker system installers test their systems after installation. Same with alarm monitoring systems. And I run little chance of death if the oil drains out of my car. Maybe a $5000 Haz-Mat fine, but that is why I use a new washer and a torque wrench on my drain plug instead of a calibrated wrist.

Sorry. If Verizon, Vonage, Time Warner, or anyone else that I have shows a pattern of problems with routing 9-1-1 calls to the 9-1-1 call center...it's gonna get a quick test and if it fails they're gone.

reply to ColorBASIC
"Testing" the system is ok, but use it VERY sparingly and by sparingly I mean maybe once every few years.

If you dial 9-1-1 simply tell the operator that this is a Non-Emergency Call, you have new phone service, and you wanted to make sure you can get through to 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency. Most, if not all, 9-1-1 operators are nice (at least when I call they are).

In any event DO NOT hang up if 9-1-1 goes through and DO NOT "test" the system often. If you hang up and the operator can't get back through the police will come-a-knockin. If you call multiple times or prank call (or the operator thinks you are prank calling) that will warrant the police to visit as well.
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"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons..." - T.S Eliot
Ma Blog »www.johndball.com

reply to Hall

reply to ColorBASIC
Just a note:

I don't know what the rest of the VOIP providers do but Vonage is supposed to have a help desk that will answer the phone and try to contact the appropriate authorities if they know that there is no way for them to route your call to an actual 911 operator (due to technical limitations or if there is no 911 service in your area.)

reply to fiberguy

reply to ColorBASIC
When I test our security system, it sends a test signal to Brinks and waits for a response. That's a lot different than "testing" by intentionally triggering the alarm or pushing one of the emergency buttons and waiting for the police to show up.

reply to ColorBASIC
What "rigorous Federal standards" do you speak of?

If POTS 911 fails (and it does), the telco has no liability. The last time I need to call 911 from a POTS line (Verizon in New Jersey) in 2004, I got a busy signal... with several attempts. Since I still had the direct number for the police, fire, and rescule squads near the phone (from before 911 was there) I was able to call for help.

While I understand that calling 911 is quicker than calling the 7 (or 10) digit police station number, it wasn't too long ago that 911 wasn't there. And you had to dial the police department number. Heck, phones even had special speed dial buttons for police/fire/rescue squad on them. Were people dropping dead by the thousands in their homes before 911?

reply to ColorBASIC
Before testing 911, I called the general information number of the police department and requested permission to call 911 for a test and asked what would be a good time. They were completely fine with that.

Stu

reply to ColorBASIC
If E911 doesn't work, I have 3 mobile phones available. Whoever picks up will route you to the local emergency services... wherever you are.

reply to Hall
Most emergency communications centers have, or should have policies to conduct a test of a phone line's ability to access the 911 network. My former ECC's policy was to call the non emergency number and request a test "slot". The dispatcher would make sure there were resources to conduct the test, get the callers information *name, number, address...* and then tell the caller to conduct the test.
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Para Bellum!!

reply to anon_in_nj
Rigorous Federal standards in that the provider must route the call directly to the call center, have battery backup so the service works during a power outage. Basically anyone calling their service 9-1-1 has to control all aspects of routing the call to insure stability. Virtually all 3rd party VOIP should not be able to qualify simply because they can't control reliability.

And 9-1-1 has been around since 1968 in 1999 9-1-1 became the 'official' emergency number nationwide. I'm simply saying that there should be Federal minimum standards a voice provider should have to meed in order to use the 'official' emergency number so that people aren't mislead into a false sense of security. No matter where in the fine print you put it, people's nature is to not read the fine print. And while it's not the fault of Vonage or Comcast that people don't read the fine print, the point of 9-1-1 is to save lives and in this case the duty is to protect people from themselves in the case of VOIP 9-1-1 services.

For these VOIP providers, having 9-1-1 service is a SELLING POINT that makes them money. Without 9-1-1 some wouldn't consider them. In exchange I find it reasonable that they should meet some minimum standards of reliability and accountability.

The problem with 7 digit numbers is as 9-1-1 service expanded, the 7 digit dispatcher numbers were often replaced with calling 9-1-1. Whereas before you called a police station and could get emergency service. Now those number get you administrative (desk) services only and you must call 9-1-1 for emergency dispatch.