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Home > Archive > Emergency services > May 2005 > Re: When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?
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Re: When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?
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| HorneTD wrote:
> When you dial 911 will your call even go through is the instant question
> and this decision is not a panacea. 911 was entirely developed around
> traditional Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). That service was
> delivered over a pair of copper wires that went from a telephone Central
> Office (CO) to the subscribers premise. It's voice signals were powered
> from the CO's batteries which were recharged from motor generators
> driven by the local electrical utility or by on sight generation when
> utility power was unavailable. Since telephone service developed before
> rather than after reliable public electrical power was available in many
> communities the COs were all built to be self sufficient and the local
> operating companies never changed that practice. None of the new comers
> to the industry ever tried to imitate the level of reliability that the
> LOCs achieved. Many of the disputes between the new comers and the LOCs
> have been about how much access the new comers would have to the LOCs
> resources rather than the LOCs subscribers. The LOCs have very good
> reasons to fight against the new comers getting space in the exchanges,
> access to exchange power, and use of exchange switching equipment at
> bargain basement rates. All of the new comers attack the LOCs for
> demanding full cost pricing including a profitable return on the LOCs
> physical plant investments.
This was precisely the issue when AT&T started providing local exchange
service from inside the local CO. Their equipment was piggy-backed onto
the emergency power system, thereby deriving the same benefits as the
local carrier did. Without equitable pricing, AT&T was getting a cheap
ride on some very expensive investments by the local carrier.
>
> Mean while the rate of telephone service having exceeded 95% of all
> households nation wide all of the nations major cities have abandoned
> their once substantial investment in emergency communications systems
> which allowed citizens to call for help without using the Switched
> Telephone Network. The most familiar example of such systems was the
> network of street fire alarm boxes that many cities maintained until the
> seventies. The signals from those alarms traveled on dedicated wires,
> over redundant pathways, with continuous supervision of the circuits
> integrity. Such expensive but very reliable emergency reporting systems
> only exist as a few remnants in a few places.
>
> As competition puts more and more pressure on investment reliability of
> service will go the way of the dodo. We may begin to see architects
> designing watchtowers into new fire stations so the watchman can look
> for the loom up of the fire within their service areas if the trend
> continues.
--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'
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