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Posted by on February 26, 2008, 8:47 am
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The Bucks County Courier Times reported more troubles with 911 centers
failing to send timely assistance or deal properly with callers.
Is this a problem in 911 call centers? Have they become too
centralized and remote from the dispatchers who actually direct
personnel? Perhaps a closer look is needed at how 911 call centers
work, and how [they're] different from [traditional] dispatching centers.
It seems to me that a common characteristic of 911 call centers is
centralization for a large geographic area and of course consolidating
police, fire, and ambulance calls to one operator, as opposed to the
previous practice of separate operators for each class of service.
In this latest case (reported below), a high school wrestler was
injured at a meet at the school. The dispatcher was told exactly
where to send the ambulance, including which door to use [at] the
sprawling school complex. The dispatcher first sent the ambulance to
a YMCA, then to a different high school, and finally to where it was
needed.
For full article details please see:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23332808
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Posted by T on February 26, 2008, 10:26 pm
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In article <37bfc976-88b1-485a-8e5a-
173c2269444f@z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
says...
> The Bucks County Courier Times reported more troubles with 911 centers
> failing to send timely assistance or deal properly with callers.
>
> Is this a problem in 911 call centers? Have they become too
> centralized and remote from the dispatchers who actually direct
> personnel? Perhaps a closer look is needed at how 911 call centers
> work, and how [they're] different from [traditional] dispatching centers.
>
> It seems to me that a common characteristic of 911 call centers is
> centralization for a large geographic area and of course consolidating
> police, fire, and ambulance calls to one operator, as opposed to the
> previous practice of separate operators for each class of service.
>
> In this latest case (reported below), a high school wrestler was
> injured at a meet at the school. The dispatcher was told exactly
> where to send the ambulance, including which door to use [at] the
> sprawling school complex. The dispatcher first sent the ambulance to
> a YMCA, then to a different high school, and finally to where it was
> needed.
>
> For full article details please see:
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23332808
>
>
In RI we have a pretty good E-911 system and on every one of our phone
bills we got hit for about $1.50 a month to support that system.
Recently there've been up to 90 second delays in getting to an E-911
operator. The problem isn't technical, it's political.
That $1.50 a month paid by close to a million subscribers every month is
suppose to completely fund the agency that handles all the calles to E-
911. But the money collected by the telecom companies is turned off to
the Dept. of Revenue and then rolled into a thing called the General
Fund.
Our legislators have regularly raided the money for E-911, same as
they've done for other things like road and bridge repair, retirement
accounts, etc.
The legislature also sets the budge so year after year they've left
seats unfilled at the E-911 center.
I say separate the funds so that our E-911 system works the way it was
designed to work.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I generally discourage "political" debates in the Digest, but this
topic affects telecom very directly.
On one hand, city managers and emergency-service professionals are
seeking to maximize the effectiveness of their budget dollars, and
that means using semi-skilled or unskilled labor where possible. If a
911 operator hears someone laughing, and doesn't have the training to
recognize it as a symptom of gas poisoning, then a citizen can die -
but the city manager who cut the training budget never gets the blame.
On the other hand, taxpayers who have been squeezed by pork-barrel
projects, government largess to campaign donors, and record fuel
prices are being forced to endure higher insurance bills because of
reduced reliability of emergency services. Higher insurance rates
aren't shown in city budgets, since the taxpayers pay for their own
insurance, but higher tax rates, especially for such intangibles as
E911 operator training, draw immediate protests that no elected
official wants to endure. If ratepayers don't think they're getting
their money's worth, there's nothing they can do short of establishing
volunteer fire departments and ambulance units, and the politician's
know it.
To my mind, this comes down to a question of just how much technology
can, and should, be expected to do: if E911 can locate an incoming
call to a particular apartment in a 50-unit building (it does), and
thus save lives by eliminating address errors, most voters would agree
that the cost is worth it. But if the employees hired to man the
system are unskilled political hangers-on who've been awarded a
sinecure, then the questions gets more complicated: emergency service
officers want trained professionals who can make decisions and utilize
the field forces most effectively: in other words, they feel that E911
is a tool that only firefighters and police officers are able to
utilize with maximum effectiveness. Politicians, on the other hand,
want campaign workers whose only real talent is loyalty to the regime,
and they feel that the E911 technology is good enough to allow anyone
to do the job.
YMMV.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
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Posted by on February 27, 2008, 8:45 am
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> In RI we have a pretty good E-911 system and on every one of our phone
> bills we got hit for about $1.50 a month to support that system.
We pay $1-$2 depending on the location.
How were call centers, both old 911 and pre-911, funded before this
fee? A common task of Bell operators was to connect callers to the
proper emergency service line, indeed, to assist callers if necessary
in passing along information; I believe the Bell System assumed this
cost.
> Our legislators have regularly raided the money for E-911, same as
> they've done for other things like road and bridge repair, retirement
> accounts, etc.
Sadly, this is so common in politics.
> On one hand, city managers and emergency-service professionals are
> seeking to maximize the effectiveness of their budget dollars, and
> that means using semi-skilled or unskilled labor where possible. If a
> 911 operator hears someone laughing, and doesn't have the training to
> recognize it as a symptom of gas poisoning, then a citizen can die -
> but the city manager who cut the training budget never gets the blame.
It seems call centers get centralized out of local jurisdiction. Our
is run by the county, and while we vote for county supervisors, it's
not a big election issue. Our local town council avoids any
responsibility even though it oversees the police department.
> To my mind, this comes down to a question of just how much technology
> can, and should, be expected to do: if E911 can locate an incoming
> call to a particular apartment in a 50-unit building (it does), and
> thus save lives by eliminating address errors, most voters would agree
> that the cost is worth it.
The technology is clearly imperfect. The databases are not always
accurate.
But more importantly is that the operators are not as thoroughly
trained and not familiar with geography. I blame centralization of
call centers. In my region there are many developments with quaint
names and a big blur of post offices, municipalities, and commonly
used names, none of which coincide. (And neither do phone rate center
exchanges). This has resulted in much confusion of dispatching of
services to the wrong place and disasters as a result.
Years ago in Philadelphia the police dept dispatchers are
sectionalized, so that dispatchers got more familiar with particular
neighborhoods of the city. IMHO this was a critically useful skill.
Later they centralized all dispatchers and that caused more
confusion. For one thing, despite computers, having a human have an
idea of the overall picture is critical. A boy was killed by muggers
despite repeated calls to E911 because the numerous calls were
answered by a variety of operators, none of whom realized something
serious was going on and failed to issue the emergency priority
dispatch.
I have been frustrated calling 911 in the suburbs since there aren't
hard street addresses as in the city. I reported a problem "on South
Main Street in Smithtown across from the bank" and the operator had
trouble since I had no street address and obviously had no idea what I
meant. A local cop certainly would've understand had they transmitted
that message.
> (Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
> I may never see it. Thanks!)
I forgot it on the original post, but added it here. Sorry about that.
***** Moderator's Note *****
No need to apologize: I can't take offence, since I never saw the post ;-).
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
(Please put [Telecom] at the end of the subject line of your post, or
I may never see it. Thanks!)
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Posted by T on February 27, 2008, 10:17 pm
If you were Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
de0ca55fdc7b@h25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
says...
>
> > In RI we have a pretty good E-911 system and on every one of our phone
> > bills we got hit for about $1.50 a month to support that system.
>
> We pay $1-$2 depending on the location.
>
> How were call centers, both old 911 and pre-911, funded before this
> fee? A common task of Bell operators was to connect callers to the
> proper emergency service line, indeed, to assist callers if necessary
> in passing along information; I believe the Bell System assumed this
> cost.
Prior to the rollout of E-911 you simply dialed the Operator. The cost
of those services was of course absorbed by Bell and then passed on in
some small amount to every subscriber.
> The technology is clearly imperfect. The databases are not always
> accurate.
In the case of VoIP it is as accurate as the information the subscriber
enters.
> Years ago in Philadelphia the police dept dispatchers are
> sectionalized, so that dispatchers got more familiar with particular
> neighborhoods of the city. IMHO this was a critically useful skill.
> Later they centralized all dispatchers and that caused more
> confusion. For one thing, despite computers, having a human have an
> idea of the overall picture is critical. A boy was killed by muggers
> despite repeated calls to E911 because the numerous calls were
> answered by a variety of operators, none of whom realized something
> serious was going on and failed to issue the emergency priority
> dispatch.
>
> I have been frustrated calling 911 in the suburbs since there aren't
> hard street addresses as in the city. I reported a problem "on South
> Main Street in Smithtown across from the bank" and the operator had
> trouble since I had no street address and obviously had no idea what I
> meant. A local cop certainly would've understand had they transmitted
> that message.
One of the issues that had to be resolved here in Rhode Island was
standardizing and normalizing address data. In essence everything got a
building number and street description.
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Posted by John Mayson on March 11, 2008, 10:45 pm
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> Is this a problem in 911 call centers? Have they become too
> centralized and remote from the dispatchers who actually direct
> personnel? Perhaps a closer look is needed at how 911 call centers
> work, and how [they're] different from [traditional] dispatching centers.
I know in some parts of the country they have moved to consolidated call
centers hosted either by a consortium of municipalities or the state
police. I could see how a dispatcher who has never been to a community
50-100 miles away could get a detail wrong.
Around where I live the cities & counties operate their own. This can be
aggravating where I live because City of Austin and Travis and Williamson
Counties are all an earshot from each other and calling 9-1-1 on a cell
phone almost guarantees you'll get the wrong one. On the plus side though
is local knowledge. I monitor local agencies on my radio scanner and am
amazed just how well dispatchers know their territory. Not much happens
in Austin and I hear a lot of "cattle on highway" calls. The dispatcher
will say, "Do the cattle have red tags or blue tags on them? Blue? Oh,
that's ole Bill's cattle. He lost a fence post in that accident last week
on highway 29 and I guess he still doesn't have it fixed."
John
--
Austin, Texas, USA // Sent from a Nokia N810
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