Safety and security may be among the top reasons people buy cellular phones, but these features often fall short in one area: 911 service. But the state of Washington is hoping to remedy that situation with a new law that makes cellular carriers offer enhanced 911 service available this year in counties that request it.
E-911 uses automatic number identification, or ANI, which provides 911 operators faster access to caller information.
Previously, it was difficult for 911 operators to identify a cellular caller’s phone number, said Kenneth Woo, media relations manager for AT&T Wireless Services in Washington. In fact, cellular calls didn’t even register with 911 service bureaus prior to E-911, explained AT&T.
AT&T, U S West Cellular and others are part of a cooperative E-911 effort in Washington. According to Woo, “The state is requiring us to make it (E-911 service) available to all counties who want it.”
ANI technology is not new, said Charlie VanZant, manager of U S West NewVector Group Inc.’s advanced technical assistance center. Decades ago, ANI was used by phone companies in billing applications. Applied in E-911 service ANI works like this: When a 911 call is placed from a landline phone, the phone number is recognized as a centralized automatic accounting, or CAMA, signal by a 911 selective router, explained VanZant. The selective router analyzes the number and circuits from which the call came and sends a signal to the appropriate emergency service provider. Here, the public service answering point, or PSAP, equipment enables a 911 operator to see the caller’s profile, including phone number, name and address, on a computer screen.
Adding the wireless ingredient in E-911 makes the locating process a little tricky. Once a wireless-generated 911 call reaches the mobile telephone switching office, it is sent via circuits to the selective router, which reads the caller’s phone number, but cannot automatically determine location. Instead the specific circuits that sent the call are examined to help determine where the call originated. However, one group of circuits can cover many cell sites, noted VanZant, making it difficult to pinpoint location.
King County, which includes Seattle, is the first county in Washington to implement E-911 for mobile customers. Joe O’Neil, vice president of carrier and government relations for U S West NewVector Group noted Washington’s Pierce and Thurston counties, which respectively include the cities of Olympia and Tacoma, have requested carriers begin offering the service.
Landline phone users can be charged as much as 50 cents per month for improved 911 service and customers of radio access providers can be charged up to 25 cents per account every month, said O’Neil. The fee is billed through the carriers and passed on to the particular county.
“There’s been a dramatic increase in 911 calls in Washington,” said Woo. As opposed to an increase in emergency situations, he believes the growing number of 911 calls results in part from the ever-increasing number of cellular subscribers. AT&T’s Washington network receives an average of 15,000 911 calls per month, a 46 percent increase from a year ago, said the company. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association found that an average of 550,000 911 calls nationwide are processed each month by all cellular carriers, added AT&T.
A recent national Gallup Poll survey determined nearly 50 percent of cellular users have called for help in times of car trouble, medical emergency or to report a crime or drunk driver, said AT&T. Further, the study found 70 percent of polled users said safety and security were the best reasons for owning a cellular phone.
Woo and O’Neil said AT&T, U S West and others currently are developing automatic line identification, which would add another layer of capability in locating wireless users. ALI would use measures of longitude, latitude and altitude to help locate wireless callers, explained O’Neil. VanZant added that several locating techniques, including global positioning service and radio direction finders, also are being examined by the industry.
Despite these technological pursuits, VanZant noted the technology U S West uses is “old technology” because the only way certain public-safety officials can answer calls is on old equipment.
Mike Altschul, general counsel at CTIA noted E-911 service is available in both New Jersey and Rhode Island. Every state, he noted, provides a different level of E-911 service. In Washington, E-911 service is at a basic level, said Altschul. “It does not provide a real firm location.”
O’Neil said Oregon recently passed a law similar to Washington’s for implementing E-911 services in wireless, and that legislation regarding E-911 service is being considered in Colorado. He also noted the Federal Communications Commission has ruled that carriers providing ANI on a local basis also must, by Dec. 1, be able to provide ANI on an interstate basis.
