funchords
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4 edits | Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it
One of the provisions of this bill allows cities to collect 9-1-1 fees from VOIP providers.
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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mikepd
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| 9-1-1 is used in the U.S. and Canada.
Here is a website that lists the emergency numbers of many countries.
»www.911dispatch.com/911/911_world.html
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marigolds
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Saint Louis, MO
| reply to funchords
said by funchords  :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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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | reply to funchords
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. |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY | reply to marigolds
Why not outsource PSAPs to Canada or India? The latency is great with fiber optics. |
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funchords
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| 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. |
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marigolds
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Saint Louis, MO | reply to patcat88
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). |
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marigolds
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Saint Louis, MO
| reply to patcat88
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. |
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funchords
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Washington, DC | reply to marigolds
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. |
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marigolds
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Saint Louis, MO
| 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). |
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bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA
| reply to funchords
I found that a little puzzling, too. My experience is in urban areas, and the overwhelming tendency there is for PSAPs to be self-contained dispatch centers. In one room will be complaint takers and dispatchers for police, fire, and paramedics for one or more cities.
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. |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
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Saint Louis, MO
| 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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funchords
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| said by marigolds :our vendor probably hates us. As long as the checks clear, I doubt it.  |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
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Saint Louis, MO | 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).
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bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA | reply to marigolds
Is complaint entry (into the CAD) done at the county, or at the individual dispatch centers? |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
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join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| said by bus7821 :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. |
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bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA
| said by marigolds :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? |
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marigolds
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Saint Louis, MO
| 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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