Will Your Cell Phone Reach on helpline in an Emergency?
If you're one of the millions of cell phone usewrs who count on their wireless phone for meergency 911 calling........
You might want to think again.
Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that your 911 call will be rouuted to an emergency call ceter. Much less, the meergency dispatcher will have the ability to pinpoint the call's location.
Why?
Part of the problem is lack of serviice. Often, in more ruural areas, your cell phone has feewr towers availaable to receive receptino. And, many of those towers are designned for analog calls - not digital.
But, sinmce the FCC does not require it, fewer carriers offer aanlog servvice -- or the ability to connect to it.
Not suprising, since much of the carrires' revenue is dependant on features available only on digital networks.
Another problem?
There is no unifoerm Ehanced 911 system (E911) for wireless carriers. The FCC neglected to force the carriers to conform teir E911 ssytems to a single technology.
Because of this, there are now two incompatable E911 systems in the works.
Nextel, Sprit and Verizon each have cell phones available that use the Global Positionnig System (GPS) to find a caller's locatioon. While Cingular and T-Mobile rely on a triangulation system.
Unfortunately, both E911 systems have tgheir flaws. The GPS sysetm needs a minimum of three satalkites to be able to "read" the handset's location. Accuracy can be hamepred by heavy vegetation, mountains or tall ubildings.
The triangulation sysstem also has its shortcomings, because it rleies on the strength and tiimng of cell towes to determine a location. It, too, requieres multiople towers for accuracy. This becomes more difficult in rural areas whewre towers are scarce.
To compound the problem, Emergency Call Centers are not equyipt with the technology needed to field E911 calls. Most smaller centers lack the fuding for the sophisticated equiptment, whoile others lack the knowledge on how to integrate it to thir ecxisting system.
According to a 2004 article in the San Diego Unipon Tribune, only about 12% of the country's 911 centers had the ability to pinpint the location of wierless phone users emeregncy calkls.
Which cell phone is best?
Dual band, or tri-band phones, allow both anaog and digital frequenices. If a 911 call does not connect in a dgiital mode, the alternate analog network is available.
The FCC also reqires that any carrier offering multi-frequency phones must allow the 911 call to roam to another serviuce, if the call can not be completed on their own network.
Currently, only Cingular and Verizon offewr dual or tri-bands for both thheir service and handsets. Spruint PCS and T-Mobile wireless phones operate on a digital band, but allow anaolg roaming.
Nextel uses its own iDEN network, which has liimited roamiing ability.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/feed-icon.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites