Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it in http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20876739 en Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:26:53 EDT Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:26:53 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20880150 marigolds : Well, the political structure of St Louis goes back to the civil war, and was heavily influenced by the Jim Crow era (when a whole bunch of cities incorporated solely for the purpose of banning blacks from living in them).
Once you put 91 municipalities into such a small place, cooperation is pretty much impossible.
Police is almost a full cooperation though; it's really only the larger muni departments that do their own entry.
Of course, the city of st louis seceded from the county a long time ago, so their government, as well as all emergency services, are completely separate from the county.
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said by marigolds See Profile :

Fire is done at the individual dispatch centers. Police is done at the county for some munis, done at the individual dispatch center for others.
Wow, they did make it tough on themselves, didn't they? Sounds like a design based on politics rather than functionality. They could have saved a lot of money, initial and ongoing, by having all of the complaint entry at the county.

Where do the old 7 digit emergency numbers ring? And who is the CAD vendor?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20879735 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:27:46 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20878803 marigolds :
said by bus7821 See Profile :

Is complaint entry (into the CAD) done at the county, or at the individual dispatch centers?
Fire is done at the individual dispatch centers. Police is done at the county for some munis, done at the individual dispatch center for others.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20878803 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:32:57 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20878161 bus7821 : Is complaint entry (into the CAD) done at the county, or at the individual dispatch centers?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20878161 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:44:58 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20877709 marigolds : As an update, I found out today that tomorrow we will now have 43 fire districts and 64 police districts (though the number of police districts will change again in September).
:)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20877709 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:26:37 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20877656 funchords :
said by marigolds See Profile :

our vendor probably hates us. :)
As long as the checks clear, I doubt it. :D]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20877656 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:14:32 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20876739 marigolds : Yeah, we are quite different. Police, fire, and EMS all have different dispatch centers. County police takes all of the calls and then routes them to the correct dispatch center. None of the other dispatch centers take calls directly.
Fire has 44 dispatch centers; EMS technically has 46 (but actually has significantly less than that since two contract ambulance companies are covering multiple ambulance districts); and police has 63 dispatch centers. All the calls though go through county police initially. Yes, our CAD system is a little complicated and our vendor probably hates us. :)
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I believe a few fire departments in very large cities have managed to hold out and still make their separate dispatch center the PSAP for the city. If no fire response is required, a call is just transferred to the police dispatch center.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20875527 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 23:34:20 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20864757 marigolds : It might be peculiar to our area (we have 91 munis in our county), but it seems common to have multiple dispatches per routing center. Technically, every dispatch is a psap, but not every dispatch is employing all the technical staff to handle e911 requirements, phase 2, etc (I also think that, in our case, not every dispatch is in NENA either as a result).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20864757 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:02:59 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20864549 funchords : Is having a separate employer for PSAP and dispatch personnel a common model? I haven't heard of that, but I'm going on two-decades out of that business.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20864549 Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:21:44 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858505 marigolds : I forgot a huge factor too. PSAP employees are subpeonaed very frequently (at least weekly). Dispatchers can be too, but not nearly as often. Having your PSAP employees outside the country would be a bit difficult with the level of travel that would be required.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858505 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:10:45 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858499 marigolds : The PSAP itself does not employ a whole lot of people anyway. Basically one person or less per PSAP. Dispatch is where the employment is, and dispatch is a difficult job to outsource (particularly when you add in the radio coverage).]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858499 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:09:18 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858080 funchords : That's certainly a possibility, but I think the people that work in these centers would tell you that it is extremely helpful to be close to both the neighborhoods you are working with and the agencies for whom you are entering calls into Computer-Aided-Dispatch (CAD).

And they'd be right, IMO. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20858080 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:17:40 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20855437 patcat88 : Why not outsource PSAPs to Canada or India? The latency is great with fiber optics.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20855437 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:43:22 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20855433 patcat88 : Well the Police need E911 to get fake hostage reports by jealous wives so they can roll the new SWAT team that Homeland Security paid for.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20855433 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 03:41:33 EDT Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20854473 marigolds :
said by funchords See Profile :

Fees should be collected from the service districts -- police, fire, paramedics. These services are paid by our income, property and sales taxes.

Having VOIP providers pay to hook up to E9-1-1 is just going to encourage the opposite behavior.
Except that service districts are already at barebones budgets. Unlike cities and counties, they have no mechanism to directly implement a tax levy; they rely on the local government implementing the levy for them. So many departments are only staying at current levels because of homeland security grants. Having these districts pay the cell phone companies for e911 is going to result in direct cuts in emergency services.
So, the choice is having Skype cut e911 services, or having everyone lose emergency services.
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Here is a website that lists the emergency numbers of many countries.

»www.911dispatch.com/911/911_world.html
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That sounds good, but ... it's not.

Skype currently doesn't offer 9-1-1 and makes it clear that it's not in the VOIP telephone business. Why? I really don't know but my guess is that regulations like these will keep Skype from ever getting into the business.

Okay, so Skype never gets into the business, that sounds good, but ... it's not.

It won't keep people from using Skype and disconnecting their Plain Old Expensive Telephone Service since they have Skype. (And Skype is just an example, I might as well as say "Facebook Fone" or some new imaginary service).

Plus VOIP is boundryless. 9-1-1 is a United States thing.

We used to collect these fees from your home telephone bill. Everyone had one, just one. That's no longer true. Now you can reach 9-1-1 on your cell phone, your computer, your game console, your car's console, your "I've fallen and I can't get up" button, your iPod, your shoe phone ... now the average person may have 3-4 ways to call in.

Fees should be collected from the service districts -- police, fire, paramedics. These services are paid by our income, property and sales taxes.

Having VOIP providers pay to hook up to E9-1-1 is just going to encourage the opposite behavior.
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