On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:25:11 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote:

But people know 911 as the *emergency* number in the US, so many of them
would assume it was also the emergency number here. It's therefore not
a sensible choice for a "serious but not emergency" number.

On the contrary, it's a very sensible choice because anyone dialing it
would be able to contact the emergency services.

No they wouldn't. They'd (eventually) contact a call centre in Bombay
where a pleasant gentleman with a BSc, MA but minimal English language
skills would struggle with his script and suggest a trip to the local
Community Support Unit when it opens next Wednesday (mornings only).

Mark Brader wrote:
My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

The clever thing about mobile phones (at least GSM and W-CDMA handsets)
that are probably used quite a lot these days to report emergencies, is
that you can call the emergency number you know (112 or 999) anywhere
in the world. As soon as you dial that number, a request is made to the
network (home or roaming) to call the appropriate emergency number -
and you're connected.

Not only that, but it's given a higher priority so, in theory, you'll
always get through even if there's no capacity because of other users
on non-emergency calls. I think this was demonstrated on 7/7 in London,
although some people though that not being able to call their
friends/colleagues was down to the networks being shut down for
security (to prevent more bombs being triggered, as it wasn't known
then what had happened for sure). Later on, it was revealed that the
networks had coped well - but many calls would have been to 999. I
don't know if the operators coped well though, but it was a rather
extraordinary day.

Some handsets will display the numbers stored as emergency numbers, and
it is possible (not necessarily from the handset, but via a PC or a
trip to a service centre) to change them. I've reviewed handsets in the
UK that have had 999, 112 and 911 stored (plus 08 - which I have no
idea why!).

Jonathan

On Sat, 21 Jan 2006, Jonathan Morris wrote:

Mark Brader wrote:

My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is a
world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

The clever thing about mobile phones (at least GSM and W-CDMA handsets)
that are probably used quite a lot these days to report emergencies, is
that you can call the emergency number you know (112 or 999) anywhere
in the world. As soon as you dial that number, a request is made to the
network (home or roaming) to call the appropriate emergency number -
and you're connected.

Not only that, but it's given a higher priority

I had this vague impression that, not only *that*, but if you make an
emergency call from a network X phone, if there's no network X cell in
range, it'll go through a network Y or Z cell if it can find one. Hence
why phones sometimes go into this 'SOS only' mode when you've got no
reception - indicating that they can place emergency calls but not normal
ones. BICBW.

tom

--
It's the 21st century, man - we rue _minutes_. -- Benjamin Rosenbaum

Tom Anderson wrote in
:


I had this vague impression that, not only *that*, but if you make an
emergency call from a network X phone, if there's no network X cell in
range, it'll go through a network Y or Z cell if it can find one.
Hence why phones sometimes go into this 'SOS only' mode when you've
got no reception - indicating that they can place emergency calls but
not normal ones. BICBW.

After the 7 July bombings, this was discussed in uk.telecom.mobile and it
was said that many countries implement this use of a "foreign" network
provider for 999 calls if your own network isn't available. However for some
godforsaken reason the UK doesn't do this - probably because the networks
are not legally required to do it here. I despair: what are watchdogs for?

Aidan Stanger wrote:
Richard J. wrote:

Aidan Stanger wrote:

The sensible alternative would be 911, as nearly everyone already
knows it by now.

But people know 911 as the *emergency* number in the US, so many
of them would assume it was also the emergency number here. It's
therefore not a sensible choice for a "serious but not emergency"
number.

On the contrary, it's a very sensible choice because anyone dialing
it would be able to contact the emergency services.

.... but might well have to wait in a queue if 911 were a non-emergency
number. Anyway, the idea of using 911 was rather blown out of the water
by Steve Dulieu's post which said it already served as an alternative to
112 and 999 on UK mobile phones.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Martin Underwood wrote:
After the 7 July bombings, this was discussed in uk.telecom.mobile and it
was said that many countries implement this use of a "foreign" network
provider for 999 calls if your own network isn't available. However for some
godforsaken reason the UK doesn't do this - probably because the networks
are not legally required to do it here. I despair: what are watchdogs for?

The main reason for not allowing access is/was to prevent hoax calls
from unregistered/blocked SIM cards, or indeed no SIM card at all.

I am not sure why you can't use another network if your one isn't
available, as they will still be able to record your number on the
'tape'. In fact, I don't know whether they do or not, but could find
out when I get back to work next week.

On 7/7, I doubt any one network was completely saturated by 999 calls
for this to be a problem. If it was, most of the calls would have been
the same anyway. I'd hate to imagine what might happen if we had a more
serious (you know what I mean, I'm not trying to detract from what
happened!) incident that involved hundreds, or thousands, of people
over a wider area. I guess getting through on our mobile would be the
least of our problems then, however.

Jonathan

Jonathan Morris ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

On 7/7, I doubt any one network was completely saturated by 999 calls
for this to be a problem. If it was, most of the calls would have been
the same anyway. I'd hate to imagine what might happen if we had a
more serious (you know what I mean, I'm not trying to detract from
what happened!) incident that involved hundreds, or thousands, of
people over a wider area. I guess getting through on our mobile would
be the least of our problems then, however.

R4 had an investigative program into the emergency call handling a few
weeks ago - it focussed on the Birmingham riots, and how the call centres
themselves got utterly swamped to the point at which calls about a bloke
waving a gun in a pub away from the riot just couldn't even get through to
log the call.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme..._4/4524686.stm

"Jonathan Morris" wrote in message
ups.com...
Mark Brader wrote:
My understanding is that it is only a European standard. I'm confident
enough that it doesn't work here to try it -- and I've just confirmed
that it doesn't. If you can cite anything official saying that it is
a world standard, I'd be interested to see it.

The clever thing about mobile phones (at least GSM and W-CDMA handsets)
that are probably used quite a lot these days to report emergencies, is
that you can call the emergency number you know (112 or 999) anywhere
in the world. As soon as you dial that number, a request is made to the
network (home or roaming) to call the appropriate emergency number -
and you're connected.

Not only that, but it's given a higher priority so, in theory, you'll
always get through even if there's no capacity because of other users
on non-emergency calls. I think this was demonstrated on 7/7 in London,
although some people though that not being able to call their
friends/colleagues was down to the networks being shut down for
security (to prevent more bombs being triggered, as it wasn't known
then what had happened for sure). Later on, it was revealed that the
networks had coped well - but many calls would have been to 999. I
don't know if the operators coped well though, but it was a rather
extraordinary day.

Some handsets will display the numbers stored as emergency numbers, and
it is possible (not necessarily from the handset, but via a PC or a
trip to a service centre) to change them. I've reviewed handsets in the
UK that have had 999, 112 and 911 stored (plus 08 - which I have no
idea why!).

IIRC 08 is the Mexican emergency number...
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

In message ,
Martin Underwood writes
Is 192 an emergency number anywhere? In the UK it used to be directory
enquiries. I wonder if you mean 112?
I understood 112 to be the European mobile emergency number, but I'm
happy to be proved wrong.
--
Clive

In message , Laurence Payne
writes
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:25:11 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote:

But people know 911 as the *emergency* number in the US, so many of them
would assume it was also the emergency number here. It's therefore not
a sensible choice for a "serious but not emergency" number.

On the contrary, it's a very sensible choice because anyone dialing it
would be able to contact the emergency services.

No they wouldn't. They'd (eventually) contact a call centre in Bombay
where a pleasant gentleman with a BSc, MA but minimal English language
skills would struggle with his script and suggest a trip to the local
Community Support Unit when it opens next Wednesday (mornings only).
My bank (Abbey) has call centres in India, and there English is
terrible, so much so I keep re-dialing until I get an English/Scotish
voice.
--
Clive