Some 911 centers can’t keep tabs on cell phones

Analog system outdated in digital world
But the biggest obstacle is the underlying architecture of the 911 system itself.

The nonprofit 911 Industry Alliance found last year that most 911 systems still rely on older analog hardware. Even digital E911 operations are usually built — “or, perhaps more accurately, ‘jury-rigged’” — on analog platforms that reflect “the legacy telephone technology of the time the system was first designed,” it said.

That would be the late 1960s, when 911 service was optional and ran on circuits run by a single local land line provider. Today, call centers operate under scores of different local and state regulations that must accommodate not only land lines and traditional wireless phones, but also pre-paid mobile phones and Internet devices, all offered by dozens of deregulated carriers.  

The result, the alliance said, is a fragmented system that leaves “many wireless callers without the benefits of location identification information when they call 911.”

That means a land line is still your best option in an emergency, NENA and AT&T said last week in launching a campaign urging Americans to keep some form of wired service for making emergency calls.

“The more choices you have to reach 911 in an emergency, the better, and a corded land line phone should be one of those options,” said Brian Fontes, chief executive of NENA.

More Americans dropping land lines
Americans, however, are increasingly disregarding that message.

Since 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked Americans about their cell phone service when it conducts its twice-yearly National Health Interview Survey. The number of U.S. households that have ditched their land lines completely has risen consistently.

For the first time, wireless-only households hit 20 percent during the second half of last year, the CDC said, compared with 3.5 percent in 2003. Those households include nearly 19 percent of all children in the United States, the CDC found.

And when one of those families has to call 911, “they are apt to be disappointed — and left in the lurch,” the 911 Industry Alliance concluded.

“Consumers are often unaware of the limitations of 911 service in various geographic areas or with respect to  certain technologies,” the alliance said, something it said should be “a grave source of concern for policymakers and industry professionals.”

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