telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (08/04/89)
On Wednesday, Ameritech and Cellular One announced 'Cellular Express Line', a new emergency phone service for cellular customers of the two companies. 'Cellular Express Line' will provide operators 24 hours per day to answer emergency calls from persons with cellular phones. In cooperation with Illinois Bell Telephone, those calls will then be routed to the proper Police or other Emergency Services provider. In the past, one problem with the use of 911 by cellular customers was that calls were likely to go to an emergency center serving the phone exchange where the cellular call gatewayed to land-line, rather than the emergency service in the area of the distressed motorist. Much confusion resulted and valuable minutes were lost as the service providers attempted to transfer calls to one another, only to sometimes transfer the call to still the wrong place. Then too, a number of Illinois suburban communities still do not offer '911' service, largely because two or more small communities may share the same telephone central office and they have been to date unable to agree on *who* should answer police and fire calls. So motorists dialing '911' on their cellular phones were unable to predict who they would reach, and many simply gave up trying to report accidents or other matters for the police. Effective at this time, any cellular customer of Ameritech or Cellular One in the Chicago area can dial *999 and receive a professional response from a trained operator who will immediatly ascertain the location of the caller and patch the call through to the appropriate agency. Some discussion is now underway about actually using the code 911, since this is so well known by everyone. Illinois Bell is looking into the possibility of having calls to 911 from prefixes devoted to cellular service automatically routed into Cellular Express Line, completely transparent to the person using the phone. The actual geographic territory for Cellular Express Line is from the Wisconsin border on the north, including a couple of exchanges in the 414 area code actually served by Illinois Bell because they serve communities on the state line, south to Joliet, IL and Chicago Heights, IL on the south. From the Indiana State line (including a few exchanges in the far northwest corner of Indiana) and Lake Michigan on the east, the service area extends west to Aurora, IL and Crystal Lake/Fox Lake, IL on the northwest. In all, some 254 miles of expressways are included. The service coverage area is essentially the same as the 'old' (or present, until November) 312 area, with bits and pieces of 815/219/414 included. Patrick Townson