What is E911?
Enhanced 911 or E911 service is a North American telephone network feature that automatically associates your physical address with the your telephone number when you dial 9-1-1. This provides emergency responders with the location of the emergency without the person calling for help having to provide it. Enhanced 911 has been deployed in most metropolitan areas in the United States.
Without question, the Emergency 911 system has saved thousands of lives since the very first 911 call was made in 1968 in the small town of Haleyville, Alabama. Bob Gallagher, president of Alabama Telephone, decided that such an emergency system was necessary and set his engineers to work on the problem. Communications have undergone a revolution since 1968, and although the 911 system is still a vital part of emergency management, it needs upgrading. One such upgrade is called E911. This system will help emergency dispatchers locate people calling from wireless devices. The basic 911 system works by pinpointing a caller’s location by the ground line phone number. The call is automatically routed to the closest Public Safety Answering Point and the dispatcher at that point contacts the closest emergency services personnel to deal with the call. However, with the advent of wireless phones, the original 911 system became unable to pinpoint a caller’s location from a wireless device, and
Indiana Statewide 911 Plan In an emergency situation, every second counts. That’s why it’s important for 911 operators to know where callers are so that help can find them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the technology required to locate callers making 911 calls from wireless phones is not yet in place everywhere. This problem has been thrust into the spotlight by the deaths of several callers whose lives could have been saved had emergency workers been able to locate them more quickly. The nation needs a better way to respond to emergency wireless calls. The purpose of developing Enhanced 911 (E911) standards is to enable emergency service providers to quickly reach the location of a wireless 911 call with the least amount of confusion and delay. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined this issue to be so important that it mandated E911 standards and set phased deadlines for system upgrades in 1996. From the start, Indiana led the charge, beating the FCC’s schedu
Enhanced 911 System (E911): A 911 system that includes selective routing, Automatic Number Identification (ANI) and Automatic Location Identification (ALI). When 9-1-1 is dialed, the caller’s phone number and address are automatically written to a 911 operator’s screen. The 911 operator confirms the information and dispatches the appropriate emergency personnel. The capture of ANI/ALI is critical if the call becomes disconnected, or if the caller is unable to coherently verbalize their location. It is important that the address associated with the phone number be a physical address and not a post office box.
In Trouble? Dial 9-1-1 When you dial 911 on your regular phone, you are connected with the nearest PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), which routes your call to the proper emergency services like the fire department, police, etc. As your wired phone number is hooked to the national 911 network, your call is automatically sent to the PSAP nearest to your phone location and the emergency personnel can respond immediately to it. 911 emergency calling has saved numerous lives from the time it started in 1969, becoming a part of the American way of life. Over the years, the communication system has seen many changes and upgrades. one such improvement is E911 E911 E911, short for Enhanced 911, is an improvement over the basic 911 calling system. It uses the location technology to pinpoint the physical location of the phone from which the emergency call originates. In most part of America, when you dial 911, your name and street address appear on the screen when the phone is picked up by th