Yesterday, Operator, Directory Assistance and 9-1-1 Emergency Services all played an important role in our landline telephone world. However, as landlines are being replaced by wireless smartphones, VoIP Internet service and other technologies, these vital services are also fading away. Let’s take a look at how these sectors are evolving and how they may be becoming a real growth sector.
Recently, I gave a television interview to Scripps News Service about the topic of how traditional telephone companies, large and small are discontinuing these important services.
This story raises a real concern for elderly users and all those who still use traditional landlines. First of all, most people do not use these services any longer. As the number of landlines decrease, so does the demand for these services, which is why they are being discontinued. Secondly, there are often alternatives that most people simply do not think about.
New solutions for operator, emergency services, directory assistance
The reason there is so much confusion is that the carriers and phone makers have not done a good job of explaining how these services are changing. Their marketing departments should be transparent and calm concerned users.
After the Scripps News Service interview, this question kept nagging at me. It raised my curiosity, so I have been doing some digging and am learning about real solutions to this problem that you may not have thought much about.
Let me share several examples of how these services can continue in the landline world if carriers take this path, and also with wireless, VoIP, fiber and more.
Wireless also requires operator, 9-1-1 emergency, directory assistance
First, let’s look at the numbers. The trend is clear, demand for 911 as an emergency service for landline service has significantly declined in the past twenty years. In fact, over time the number of operators has dropped significantly from hundreds of thousands to just a few thousand.
This raises more questions like, since we are moving to a wireless world as well as fiber and Internet telephony, if you dial 9-1-1, how does the service know where you are located?
You see, when you dialed 911 from your landline home phone line, they knew exactly where you were. But you take your wireless phone with you wherever you go.
That means there has to be new technology to determine your location at any particular moment in time when you need help.
AT&T started 9-1-1 emergency service in 1968, however the rollout took decades. Just to be clear, I am talking about the original AT&T, which is different from the company with the same name today.
Around the 2004 time frame, San Antonio Texas Baby Bell SBC acquired AT&T, BellSouth and Cingular and took their name. So, the AT&T of today is really a super-sized SBC.
In 1979, roughly 26% of the United States could dial 911. As of 2022, 98.9% of the population has access to this emergency services number.
That shows rapid growth. What it does not show is how the telecommunications industry is rapidly changing and today is moving away from the traditional, analog telephone network.
That means even though nearly everyone is reached by this technology, demand for these landline emergency services is also rapidly collapsing.
That does not mean there is no need. It just means the economics no longer support these services in their current form.
Fortunately, there are alternatives which carriers can use to provide this service to their customers.
Verizon works with Viiz to provide emergency services on Apple Watch
Verizon is partnering with Viiz, who has a service to professionally monitor people when assistance is needed.
The Verizon Get Help service is available with the Apple Watch and connects to Viiz agents.
The user can also press the “Get Help” button on the Verizon Care Smart app on the Apple Watch. This app can also be used on other devices and services.
Users can also contact others on the Trust Circle created by the user and provide the watches location.
The customer thinks they are talking with a Verizon rep, but they are actually connected to Viiz.
As Verizon partners with Viiz, this relationship can continue to expand to other services for all their customers.
Viiz provides services like emergency, operator, directory assistance
So, as traditional, landline telephone carriers shut down their services, new companies can fill that gap.
Viiz is a monitoring technology platform which uses a full range of data to assist the caller and the communications company. They provide a wide range of services including emergency, call center, directory assistance, operator services, N11 routing, billing and clearing house services.
This is a new kind of service provider that uses voice and data operating throughout North America.
Since carriers are moving away from delivering their own services to save money, and since their customers still want them, this is a real solution for all carriers.
Apple iPhone, Google Android, Xfinity Mobile need emergency services
Apple has emergency help on their iPhone and have just extended that to include satellite service. So, even if you are not connected to a wireless network, you can still reach out for help and communicate using satellites with limited text-like service.
Of course, some of these advanced services are so new that they still have glitches. Example, the sensors in the iPhone often think users have fallen or had an accident and report this to Apple, who is said to get inundated with false emergency calls placed automatically by the smartphone.
Google Android wireless smartphones offer emergency services like the iPhone, but do not offer satellite services yet. I believe they will at some point. There have been plenty of funny and sometimes scary stories we have all read about as well.
Cable television companies also offer a variety of services which all need emergency and operator services. Companies like Comcast Xfinity Mobile, Charter Spectrum Mobile, Altice or Optimum and many smaller providers must all provide these kinds of services to users.
What that means is the way companies provide and customer access emergency services, operator and directory assistance is changing, and that is creating a real growth opportunity for companies to serve this need.
As this sector grows, I think there will be real services which the customer can contract with directly.
So, any way we slice it, we are watching this sector evolve from the landline world and through innovation and technology can deliver services to the wireless and VoIP Internet world.
