911 (emergency telephone number)

File:Udpdtahoe 911 emphasis.jpg

"Emergency 911" displayed on the side of a police car, indicating that 9-1-1 is the number to dial in the event of an emergency.

9-1-1 (nine-one-one) is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is one of eight N11 codes. It was invented and first etablished in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Development of 9-1-1

The push for the development of a nationwide emergency telephone number came in 1957 when the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended a single number to be used for reporting fires. In 1967 the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice recommended the creation of a single number that can be used nationwide for reporting emergencies. The burden then fell on the Federal Communications Commission, which then met with AT&T in November 1967 in order to come up with a solution.

In 1968, a solution was agreed upon. AT&T had chosen the number 911, which met the requirements that it be brief, easy to remember, dialed easily, and that it worked well with the phone systems in place at the time. How the number 911 itself was chosen is not well known and is subject to much speculation. However, many feel that the number 911 was chosen to be similar to the numbers 2-1-1 (long distance), 4-1-1 (information, later called "directory assistance"), and 6-1-1 (repair service), which had already been in use by AT&T since 1966. Also, it was necessary to ensure that the 9-1-1 number was not dialed accidentally, so 9-1-1 made sense because the numbers "9" and "1" were on opposite ends of a phone's rotary dial.

Furthermore, the North American Numbering Plan in use at the time established rules for which numbers can be used for area codes and exchanges. At the time, the middle digit of an area code had to be either a 0 or 1, and the first two digits of an exchange could not be a 1. At the telephone switching station, the second dialed digit was used to determine if the number was long distance or local. If the number had a 0 or 1 as the second digit, it was long distance, and it was a local call if it was any other number. Thus, since the number 911 was detected by the switching equipment as a special number, it could be routed appropriately. Also, since 911 was a unique number, never having been used as an area code or service code (although at one point GTE used test numbers such as 11911), it fit into the phone system easily.

AT&T announced the selection of 9-1-1 as their choice of the three-digit emergency number at a press conference in the Washington (DC) office of Indiana Rep. J. Edward Roush, who had championed Congressional support of a single emergency number.

In Alabama, Bob Gallagher, president of the independent Alabama Telephone Co. read an article in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 15, 1968, which reported the AT&T 911 announcement. Gallagher’s competitive spirit motivated him to beat AT&T to the punch by being the first to implement the 911 service, somewhere within the Alabama Telephone Co. territory. He contacted Robert Fitzgerald, who was Inside State Plant Manager for ATC, who in turn recommended Haleyville, Alabama as the prime site. Gallagher later issued a press release announcing that the 911 service would begin in Haleyville on Feb.16, 1968. Fitzgerald designed the circuitry, and with the assistance of technicians Jimmy White, Glenn Johnston, Al Bush and Pete Gosa, quickly completed the central office work and installation.

Just 35 days after AT&T's announcement, on February 16, 1968, the first-ever 9-1-1 call was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite from Haleyville City Hall to U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill (Dem.) at the city's police station. Bevill reportedly answered the phone with "Hello." Attending with Fite was Haleyville mayor James Whitt. At the police station with Bevill was Gallagher and Alabama Public Service Commission director Eugene "Bull" Connor (formerly the Birmingham police chief involved in federal desegregation). Fitzgerald was at the ATC central office serving Haleyville, and actually observed the call pass through the switching gear, as the mechanical equipment clunked out "9-1-1." The phone used to answer the first 911 call, a bright red model, is now in a museum in Haleyville, while a duplicate phone is still in use at the police station. Some accounts of the event claim that, "Later, the two (Bevill and Fite) said they exchanged greetings, hung up and 'had coffee and doughnuts.'"

In 1973, the White House urged nationwide adoption of 911. In 1999, President Bill Clinton signed the bill that designated 911 as the nationwide emergency number. Even though 9-1-1 was introduced in 1968, the network still does not completely cover some rural areas of the United States and Canada.

One-One or Eleven?

When the 9-1-1 system was originally introduced, it was advertised as the "nine-eleven" service. This was changed when some panicked individuals tried to find the "eleven" key on their telephones (this may seem bizarre and amusing, but it is important to remember that in emergencies people can easily become extremely confused and irrational). Therefore, all references to the telephone number 9-1-1 are now always made as nine-one-one — never as "nine-eleven."

Some newspapers and other media require that references to the phone number be formatted as 9-1-1; nine-eleven is rarely used since that term came to refer to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

9-1-1 Emergency Telephone Number Day

9-1-1 Emergency Telephone Number Day was proclaimed, by President Reagan in 1987, to occur on the 11th day of September, the ninth month, of that year. The proclamation was made to promote the North American universal emergency telephone number 9-1-1.

Until 2001, September 11 was celebrated by many United States communities as "9-1-1 emergency number day" or simply "911 day". The promotional effort was often led by firefighters and the police. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the reminders of 9-1-1 were dropped in favor of remembrance of the attacks, despite the fact that September 11, 2001 was indeed a day of emergency.

Another way of recognizing the efforts of the people involved in 9-1-1, and Public Safety Communications in-general, is National Public Safety Telecommunications Week (or as it is commonly called: Dispatchers' Week), which occurs during the second week in April.

Funding of 9-1-1

9-1-1 and enhanced 9-1-1 are typically funded pursuant to state laws that impose monthly fees on local and wireless telephone customers. Depending on the state, counties and cities may also levy a fee, which may be in addition to, or in lieu of, the state fee. The fees are collected by local exchange and wireless carriers through monthly surcharges on customer telephone bills. The collected fees are remitted to 911 administrative bodies, which may be a statewide 911 board, the state public utility commission, a state revenue department, or local 911 agencies. These agencies disburse the funds to the Public Safety Answering Points for 911 purposes as specified in the various statutes. Telephone companies, including wireless carriers, may be entitled to apply for and receive reimbursements for costs of compliance with federal and state laws requiring that their networks be compatible with 9-1-1 and enhanced 9-1-1.

The amount of the fees vary widely by state and locality. Fees may range from around $.25 per month to $3.00 per month per line. The average wireless 9-1-1 fee is around $.72, which is based on the fees for each state as published by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). Since the monthly fees do not vary by the customer's usage of the network, the fees are considered, in tax terms, as highly "regressive", i.e., the fees disproportionately burden low-volume users of the public switched network (PSN) as compared with high-volume users. Some states cap the number of lines subject to the fee for large multi-line businesses, thereby shifting more of the fee burden to low-volume single-line residential customers or wireless customers.

Congress in 2004 authorized $250,000,000 in annual funding for the 9-1-1 program, but actual federal appropriations to state and local 9-1-1 agencies are yet to occur (as of June 2006).

Locating callers automatically

A view of the Jefferson County, Washington Public Safety Answering Point.

Main article: Enhanced 911

In over 93% of locations in the United States and Canada, dialing "911" from any telephone will link the caller to an emergency dispatch center—called a PSAP, or Public Safety Answering Point, by the telecom industry—which can send emergency responders to the caller's location in an emergency. In some areas enhanced 911 is available, which automatically gives dispatch the caller's location, if available.

Dialing 9-1-1 from a mobile phone (Celluar/PCS) in the United States originally reached the state police or highway patrol, instead of the local public safety answering point (PSAP). The caller had to describe his/her exact location so that the agency could transfer the call to the correct local emergency services. This happens because the exact location of the cellular phone isn't normally transmitted with the voice call.

In 2000 the FCC issued an Order requiring wireless carriers to determine and transmit the location of callers who dial 9-1-1. They set up a phased program: Phase I transmitted the location of the receiving antenna for 9-1-1 calls, while Phase II transmitted the location of the calling telephone. The Order set up certain accuracy requirements and other technical details, and milestones for completing the implementation of wireless location services. Subsequent to the FCC's Order, many wireless carriers requested waivers of the milestones, and the FCC granted many of them. As of mid-2005, the process of Phase II implementation is generally underway, but limited by the complexity of coordination required between wireless carriers, PSAPs, local telephone companies and other affected government agencies, and the limited funding available to local agencies for the conversion of PSAP equipment to display the location data (usually on computerized maps).

These FCC rules require new mobile phones to provide their latitude and longitude to emergency operators in the event of a 911 call. Carriers may choose whether to implement this via GPS chips in each phone, or via triangulation between cell towers. In addition, the rules require carriers to connect 911 calls from any mobile phone, regardless of whether that phone is currently active. Due to limitations in technology (of the mobile phone, cell phone towers, and PSAP equipment), a mobile callers' geographical information may not always be available to the local PSAP. Although there are other ways, in addition to those previously stated, in which to obtain the geographical location of the caller, the caller should try to be aware of the location of the incident for which they are calling.

In the U.S., FCC rules require every telephone that can physically access the network to be able to dial 911, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected (including non-payment). On wired (land line) phones, this usually is accomplished by a "soft" dial tone, which sounds normal, but will only allow emergency calls. Often, an unused and unpublished phone number will be issued to the line so that it will work properly.

If 911 is dialed from a commercial VoIP service, depending on how the provider handles such calls, the call may not go anywhere at all, or it may go to a non-emergency number at the public safety answering point associated with the billing or service address of the caller. Because a VoIP adapter can be plugged into any broadband internet connection, the caller could actually be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home, yet if the call goes to an answering point at all, it would be the one associated with the caller's address and not the actual location. It may never be possible to accurately pinpoint the exact location of a VoIP user (even if a GPS receiver is installed in the VoIP adapter, it will likely be indoors, and may not be able to get a signal), so users should be aware of this limitation and make other arrangements for summoning assistance in an emergency.

In March 2005, commercial Internet telephony provider Vonage was sued by the Texas attorney general, who alleged that their website and other sales and service documentation did not make clear enough that Vonage's provision of 911 service was not done in the traditional manner.

In May 2005 the FCC issued an Order requiring VoIP providers to offer 9-1-1 service to all their subscribers within 120 days of the Order being published. The Order has set off anxiety among many VoIP providers, who feel it will be too expensive and require them to adopt solutions that won't support future VoIP products.

Problems

There are some issues with the assignment of the number 9-1-1.

Dialing patterns

In particular, it can cause some dialing-pattern problems in hotels and businesses. Some hotels, for example, have been known to require dialling "91+" to make an outside call. This leads to calls that look like 91+1+301+555+2368.

This is not really a problem since the call would simply not go through. In order to dial 911 the hotel caller would have to dial 9-9-1-1. On virtually all hotel systems "0" rings the hotel PBX operator. So even dialing an international prefix like 0-1-1- would get you 9-0-1-1 but as soon as the hotel guest hits "0" it rings the front desk or PBX operator

Since that's a valid number, which starts with 911, and is not a call to an emergency service, a timeout becomes necessary on actual calls to 911. Such prefixes are strongly discouraged by telephone companies. This is also part of the reason why no area codes start with a "1": the slightly less troublesome "outside line" prefix of "9+" would then cause the same problem: "9+114+555+2368", for example. Another possible problem is that the international phone code for India is "91", and sometimes calls meant for India end up at the local emergency dispatch office.

Some businesses also require just a simple "9" to dial out of their network. This was parodied in an episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe, where a co-worker laments that her dead colleague dialed 9-1-1 instead of 9-9-1-1. This "less troublesome" prefix can still cause problems, if a caller dials "9+1+NPA+NNX+XXXX" and the 1 button on the tone dial "skips" and sends 2 "1" digits -- again, the number will then start with "9-1-1", and if the PBX "cuts through" 9-1-1 to emergency services (as many do, and many others recommend), this will provide another opportunity for mistaken emergency calls.

Emergencies across jurisdictions

When a caller dials 9-1-1, the call is routed to the local public safety answering point. However, if the caller is attempting to notify authorities in another jurisdiction of an emergency in the area, the process can be complicated. For example, a caller in Dallas, TX aware of an emergency occurring in Little Rock, AR would have access to 9-1-1 only in Dallas, who's dispatchers may or may not know how to contact the proper authorities in Little Rock. The publicly posted phone numbers for most police departments in the U.S. are non-emergency numbers that often specifically instruct callers to dial 9-1-1 in case of emergency, which does not resolve the issue for callers outside of the jurisdiction. In the age of both commercial and personal high speed internet communications, this issue is becoming an increasing problem.

The FBI, however, has combated this problem by listing an on-line directory of all law enforcement agencies in the United States. This directory is available only to agencies with access to the NCIC/NLETS database, but allows dispatchers to quickly locate after-hour numbers for cross-jurisdictional agencies. The query has been named ORION. Not all local law enforcement agencies have access to this directory, however. [1]

Emergency numbers in other countries

Main article: Emergency telephone number

Outside the U.S. and Canada, 911 doesn't work in most countries. The most common emergency numbers are 110, 112 and 999. 911 is used so pervasively in U.S. and Canadian media and safety education, in the case the materials are exported to countries which emergency number is not 911, the countries sometimes had difficulty in educating children not to dial 911 for help .

In Germany, for example, the number for police is 110 and 112 for fire & ambulance. One of the Germany's largest cities, Nuremberg, has 911 as its area code. It can be a problem of changing the large city's area code away from 911. And in Uruguay and some parts of Argentina the emergency number is also 911. In Paraguay 911 calls the police, and 132 calls the volunteer firefighter corps. The Netherlands redirects 911 calls to the national emergency line, 112. In New Zealand, all worldwide emergency numbers, excluding the NZ 111, EU 112 and US 911 emergency numbers play a recording to the caller, instructing them that the emergency number in New Zealand is 111.

In 1991, the European Union established 1-1-2 as the universal emergency number for all its member states. In most E.U. countries, 1-1-2 is already effective and can be called toll-free from any telephone or any cellphone. The GSM mobile phone standard designates 1-1-2 as an emergency number, so it will work on such systems even in the U.S. In the UK, the number is 9-9-9 with 1-1-2 working in parallel.

9-1-1 in popular culture

• The number's close association with emergencies has led to "911" being used as shorthand for "emergency" in text messages sent to pagers and mobile phones—however, this is often used to tag situations which do not have the life-safety implications that an actual call to 911 implies.
• The hip hop group Public Enemy released a song in 1990 that was scathingly critical of the 9-1-1 service entitled "911 Is A Joke". The song highlighted the poor performance of the 9-1-1 service in predominantly black neighborhoods.
• The Cindy Lauper album True Colors contains a track entitled "911".
• The band D12 performs a song entitled 911.
• In one episode of The Simpsons, Homer picks up the phone and says, "Operator, give me the number for 9-1-1!" He also receives the "true" emergency phone number of 9-1-2 when he joins the Stonecutters.
• CBS once featured a television show, Rescue 911, which featured William Shatner recounting stories of actual emergencies and the corresponding response of 9-1-1.
• In the 'Crazy For You' episode of Home Improvement, Tim calls the operator and says "Operator - what's the number for 911?" He then tells the operator to "slow down" as he writes it down.
• On the 1992 "Earthquake!" episode of Saved By The Bell, a character is told to call 911. They then promptly ask, "What's the number?"

See also

• 1-1-2 Emergency phone number across the European Union.
• 999 British emergency number
• 0-0-0 Australian emergency number

External links

• FCC rules on wireless 911 service
• National Emergency Number Association: Development of 9-1-1