blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) (05/16/91)
> [Moderator's Note In many large urban areas 911 won't work correctly > from cell phones ... Here in Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems Area (Corpus Christi, TX) SWBMS promotes FREE 911 Calls and urges you to use the service. A call to 911 gets you a Southwestern Bell (RBOC not Mobile Systems I THINK she Identifies herself as Southwestern Bell) operator who seems to have no idea you dialed 911. You end up having to ask her to connect you to 911 ... she does, and then spends about three to five seconds telling the 911 operator you are a cellular caller (but NOT your cellular number) and giving her operator number. This whole process adds almost fifteen seconds to completing the call, and I find that ANNOYING if not dangerous. FYI I toured the 911 dispatch center a couple of months ago. Three monitors at each dispatch station ... a Computer Aided Dispatch system with a huge X-windowed monitor that had three active windows on it ... one showing the calls that the operator (different person) had taken, one showing available units and taking assignments if who got which calls and one for querying licence plate records. The second (looked like CGA) was associated with the trunked 800 mhz radio system ... showed units in that dispatchers channels and who was transmitting ... the third was off. The 911 Answer station was a regular phone with a rectangular AT&T box about the size of a digital clock that I assume showed the incoming phone number ... Corpus does not yet have the service that gives addresses as well (though we have been paying taxes for it for some time) and that it takes as long as 20 minutes to call SW Bell in San Antonio to get an address. The whole dispatch station is protected by a halon fire protection system.. when the alarm goes off they operators and dispatchers have a couple of minutes to evacuate the dispatch area before the (apparently deadly) halon is released. while evacuated dispatch continues over walkie talkies from the parking lot but 911 calls go un answered. As a side note, I was on a ride-along last week and the entire dispatch system crashed for four plus hours ... they were using scratch pads to dispatch, and couldn't look up license plates and identification information. The radios still worked though the officer I was with said they had been down (radios) last week for an extended period. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE
"Marc T. Kaufman" <kaufman@neon.stanford.edu> (05/18/91)
In article <telecom11.365.10@eecs.nwu.edu> Blake Farenthold <blake@pro-party.cts.com> writes: > The whole dispatch station is protected by a halon fire protection > system.. when the alarm goes off they operators and dispatchers have > a couple of minutes to evacuate the dispatch area before the > (apparently deadly) halon is released. while evacuated dispatch > continues over walkie talkies from the parking lot but 911 calls go un > answered. Halon is not "deadly". It is a nice clean chlorofluorocarbon. However, it works by displacing the oxygen in the air, which makes breathing somewhat more difficult. A more rational reason for leaving is to avoid breathing the smoke from the fire that caused the system to activate. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)
David Lemson <lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> (05/18/91)
blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: > Here in Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems Area (Corpus Christi, TX) > SWBMS promotes FREE 911 Calls and urges you to use the service. A > call to 911 gets you a Southwestern Bell (RBOC not Mobile Systems I > THINK she Identifies herself as Southwestern Bell) operator who seems > to have no idea you dialed 911. You end up having to ask her to > connect you to 911 ... she does, and then spends about three to five In St. Louis (also SBMS) there are two numbers for 911: 311 for Illinois and 511 for Missouri (or is it the other way around? Once I was in an accident and dialed the wrong one by mistake because I was so shaken up -- the Illinois man was nice about it, though, but I did have to hang up and redial). Every time I've called 511, I get a 911 operator who then connects me with the emergency line of the police of the city I happen to be in! I suppose that if someone was hurt, he or she wouldn't take the time to put you on hold (I hope!) and connect you with the right city, but it's rather disheartening to be put on hold when you call 911. (Especially when it's you who was in the accident, you end up telling your story twice - grrr...) > FYI I toured the 911 dispatch center a couple of months ago. [story about dispatch center deleted] > The whole dispatch station is protected by a halon fire protection > system ... when the alarm goes off they operators and dispatchers have > a couple of minutes to evacuate the dispatch area before the > (apparently deadly) halon is released. Incidentally, Halon works by sucking up all of the available oxygen, thus killing the fire -- that's why it's a bad thing to be in the same room with vast amounts of Halon. David Lemson University of Illinois Computing Services Consultant Internet : lemson@uiuc.edu UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson
Kral <braun@dri.com> (05/23/91)
In article <telecom11.369.5@eecs.nwu.edu> kaufman@neon.stanford.edu (Marc T. Kaufman) writes: > Halon is not "deadly". It is a nice clean chlorofluorocarbon. > However, it works by displacing the oxygen in the air, which makes > breathing somewhat more difficult. A more rational reason for leaving > is to avoid breathing the smoke from the fire that caused the system > to activate. While the guy who pushes the stuff likes to demo it by having it dump on him in a booth (to demonstrate its safety), I know a computer operator and a DEC FE who suffered from slightly bruised lungs after being dumped on. It comes out with enough force to knock you down, if you're near a nozzle. kral * 408/647-6112 * ...!uunet!drivax!braun * braun@dri.com