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ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112?
First time accepted submitter maijc writes "The International Telecommunication Union will determine the standard emergency phone numbers for new generations of mobile phones and other devices. AP reports that member states have agreed that either 911 or 112 should be designated as emergency phone numbers. 911 is currently used in North America, while 112 is standard across the EU and in many other countries worldwide."
I imagine it would be technically trivial to simply require that *both* numbers link to emergency services. It would be easy to do, and would make things a lot safer for visitors in either America or Europe who may only be familiar with one or the other.
Easy peasy, and no argument needed.
Of course, this is the U.N. we're talking about here, so OF COURSE there will be an argument. And it will no doubt break down fairly quickly into an old-resentment pissing contest between Europe and America, with both sides engaging in increasingly hyperbolic rhetoric and the end result being both sides telling the other to sod off. It will probably be considered a success if four additional numbers don't get proposed by countries who hate the West in general.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
If I'm lying there barely conscious it seems to me the easiest thing to do would be to dial the same number 3 times, for example 111, you don't even have to look to do that.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
What about the UK standard 0118-999-881-999-119-7253?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ
3
why can't we standardise on that?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I believe in Asia (or at least Korea), it's 119, so even those two aren't consistent internationally.
One argument for 112 is that it's easier to quickly dial if you're having an emergency moment and your finger-mobility is limited.
An argument against would be that it's easier to dial by accident.
I believe that 911/119 were chosen partially because those were the farthest spaced digits, to prevent accidental dialling.
I once had a co-worker who had a very simple phone number. Something like 555-545-4544 (or had only 2-3 unique digits).
He amused us once by playing back a message that some random young child had left on his voicemail over the weekend, presumably after mashing keys on the phone. The interesting part was that it wasn't the first such voicemail he had, but it was generally from different random children.
So 112 may be easier to dial in an emergency, but it's also likely to have a higher number of mis-dials or 3-year-olds that just picked up a phone and mashed part of the number-pad.
While we really don't use 112- as a prefix in the US, I could see how someone might use 911- as a prefix elsewhere.
This is exactly how the arguments will break down. Someone will say something like "you provide 911 in Europe because everyone knows that's the emergency number, but we don't need to provide 112 for the same reason" and nothing can be agreed. GP's idea that both provide both is much better, that way it is neutral and there can be no harm in America routing 112 to the emergency services.
Why not have both?
> 911 is currently used in North America, while 112
> is standard across the EU and in many other
> countries worldwide.
911 then, of course. USA! USA! USA!
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That way no one would ever forget it.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
112 isn't just standard across the EU and many other countries, it's part of the GSM standard. Outside of America getting its own way, there's no good reason to pick anything other than that, it's practically a worldwide standard already.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
There's a lot of inertia behind both of these numbers in their respective realms. Since all it takes is one non-informed person to call the wrong number and subsequently die, political pressure against standardizing on one number is going to exist.
That being said, why not make both numbers point to the same service planet-wide?
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Android already provides an "Emergency call" button.
Then the UN could get on with sorting out world peace instead...
Perhaps not practical with older clockwork phones though.
Do both. Waste 1% of phone number space, which has basically no cost. Problem solved.
Ah, no you got the wrong number, this is 91...2.
Just in case anyone is wondering: the NANP has area codes and exchanges starting with 2-9, which means that 112 would be globally unique on NANP (in fact, 11 would allow the phone system to register that you must be dialing 112, since the only time you'd start with a 1 is when dialing the NANP country code followed by an area code, or when dialing the emergency services.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
I'm just glad they're abandoning 999 used in the UK. Its far too easily miscalled on a locked phone.
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It's the nature of large bureaucracies to make decisions in order to be seen as doing something. It doesn't matter if the something actually makes sense or not.
In the ITU's case, they've suffered some significant losses recently with "4G" being co-opted to mean "3G" by phone carriers and by their internet regulatory plan being shot down by the US. So they really need to do something here if only to feel like they're not totally impotent (like most of the UN is).
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Why can't it just stay the same as it is now? There's a reason for that, you know.
If they try to enforce 112, the US will tell them to get bent. +1 is the North American regional prefix, and the US uses it directly as a country prefix.
If they try to enforce 911, India has just as much right to do the same, since +9 is the mid-east regional prefix, and +91 is India's country prefix.
Why must the ITU screw everything up? They're like King Fecas. Everything they touch turns to crap.
Why isn't that built into GSM rather than depending on a phone number? Just pressing an emergency button should dial the proper number anyway, no?
Say what now? I'm pretty sure we have consensus here that that's Complete And Utter Bullshit. The only point of dispute there is which government(s) get the greater sway (because they all want authoritarian power over content and delivery for their own reasons); and the only dispute here is whether the US or one of the other govs would be less horrible (and the comments I've read thus far mostly sway toward the US).
But yeah, of course governments want more power over the internet. Those that don't just need to be...convinced.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
As others have said, that number was chosen because it is the hardest to dial accidentally or mis-dial. When numbers are right next to each other, it's a lot easier to mess up while dialing or to have a case of the hot dog fingers and accidentally dial the emergency number.
and go for 9112
In fact... if you make 911 the emergency number in Spain we won't be able to dial to the 10% of fixed lines in Madrid in Spain.
91xxxxxxx is how all home lines in Madrid province begin with.
Why not 666?
The Mark of the Beast is easy to remember.
Yes, I _am_ an agent of Satan, but the duties are mostly ceremonial.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
IT has been managing these issues for decades. This is not new, and neither is the concept of a phone being used by someone in another country and the potential confusion in emergency calls.
Landlines aren't portable, like cellphones, but their users are. Someone from Germany, for instance, in New York on business, may well have to make an emergency call - how did they ever figure it out in the old days?
And my phone (my last 2 actually) doesn't have a useful speed dial to 911. I have to unlock it, find the dialer, and only then do I get to dial 911. I can't conceive of a reason to complain about one-button access yet, though of course I obviously haven't been in an emergency situation. How does an iPhone dial 911 quickly? I dunno, I use an Android phone. Quick doesn't seem to apply.
This really seems like ITU trying to impose something for the sake of it. Apparently they think they is important.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
since the only time you'd start with a 1 is when dialing the NANP country code followed by an area code, or when dialing the emergency services, or when butt-dialing a number unintentionally.
Fixed that for you.
Yes, any number can be butt dialed, but using only one digit (999) or adjacent digits (112) is a lot easier to butt-dial than opposing digits (911). Then again, I've heard that there are phones out there which will dial an emergency number when you smash a bunch of buttons, under the dodgy assumption that it must mean you're really in trouble when you can't coherently dial a number.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I think the mobile phones are the easy part, the hard part will be the 'other devices' which presumably will include landlines.
In the ITU's case, they've suffered some significant losses recently with "4G" being co-opted to mean "3G" by phone carriers
I thought carriers were subconsciously encouraging their customers to be honest by referring to their deployment of Long Term Evolution as "4G Lite".
Given that mobile phones have you enter a number and then press a separate button to connect the call, I would say it would not be a problem. Locals who would call from a fixed line (where the system has to be able to interpret on the fly) will already know the correct number; visitors who only have mobiles are the ones who need this.
I was hoping they would use 867-5309... I miss Jenny.
And why does the EU use 112? Because we use 911. Seemed like the perfect reason to them.
112 is used because 111 could be dialed by accident (hanging up a few times) on old pulse dial phones.
the GSM spec contains a special call type 'emergency' which is meant to be triggered when you press that, or dial 112 or 999 (or presumably 911) so the digits really don't matter to the network. The idea was that those calls could kick someone else off the network if it was congested, for an emergency. I don't believe it was ever implemented though.
It was implemented. In the UK at least if you call an emergency number when you have a weak signal it will dramatically improve for the duration of the call as the cell tower reconfigures itself to use up to its maximum power and, as you say, drops any other call that was interfering with the call placed by your handset.
The towers are smart enough not to drop any calls or boost the power unless it will help.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
Make sure you remember it BEFORE your fire extinguisher catches on fire.
A universal number that everyone must use .... its got to be 666
Generally you want the emergency number to be difficult to dial by accident. In the past, some national telecoms agencies made sure that no other numbers had the same first digit as the emergency number. This is being eroded now; in .nl, some idiot provider decided to make voicemail reachable via 1233 when emergency is 112.
I think this is probably an important rule that you cannot break in international numbering conventions (someone better informed could enlighten us). I say this because 10 or 15 years ago there was a huge numbering restructuration (due to increasing mobile numbers) to allocate a special numbering for mobiles (cellulars ?), and when it was done I remember several experts arguing to follow the international numbering rules to avoid this overlapping.
So if you have 911 for an emergency call, you won't be able to have any 911xxx number afterwards. It's not a big issue, just to confirm 911 at least has one clear numbering in conflict here in Europe.
I would be interesting to know if there is any on the other way (112).
DTMF (Touch Tone) dialing was introduced in 1963 but did not become commonplace until the 1970s. 9-1-1 was picked as the emergency number in 1968. It's worth noting that "1" and "9" are far from each other on both DTFM keypads and rotary dials, so the same logic (avoiding accidental calls) applies to both systems.
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What's wrong with our current system, it seems to work just fine in the US so far and if it ain't broke, don't fix it as they say....?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
We should make it 555 and make all the TV shows and movies into a joke when the give out numbers.
Not really. Make both available where both can be available. If 911 is a prefix in your country, use 112. If you have 112, use 911. Wait, that's practically how it already is!
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
999 was originally chosen as a number that required some intent to dial, as it was the longest dial on a rotary phone.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
it seems to me the 911 would be harder to accidentally dial.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
Thanks for that. Now I'm stuck with the song in my head and will have to watch the vid.
IT's because 112 was the number of the Carabinieri. And Carabinieri's quick response team cars kicks ass. http://www.flickr.com/photos/52287882@N05/6891872513/
+ sign is universal for International calls.
00 is not universal. A lot of countries use it, but by no means all.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
-G
000 is longer. It was used here, before being supplanted by 112. I suppose a child dialing 000 is more probable than 999, as it the dial is turned as far as it goes.
999 is easy to pocket-dial. It was good for the days of rotary-dial phones, but not so good for keypads in a pocket.
As an American, I was a bit disappointed there wasn't a "joke joke" here. Not a joke about something that was really going on in the UK, just an "Imagine if they were to change the emergency number to something ridiculously long and hard to remember? That'd be wacky!" kind of a joke.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
...why not use something like a CNAME record for 911 here in the US and have it go to 112 and then we won't have to worry about it.
Make both numbers work in both places - temporarily
Give up on arguing it out, use a coin toss or something similar to pick one.
Set a date to turn off the number not chosen
Advertise the hell out of the fact that the other one is going away for a couple years before actually doing it.
Shoot the next person who recommends anything like this only apply to one limited area in the increasingly global world.
Harmonizing standards is about long term gains, and I fully support it, even if it means temporary inconvenience.
For every application where you will say it is useful over metric, you will only show that you have ingrained the imperial system and do not want to move on. order of magnitude to compare to human size stuff ? metric (centimeter / decimeter / Kg / Tons / liter etc...) gives an immediate gut estimate (i often see the cited example of "it is easier to use 4 foot 11 inches than 150 cm if you were used to it you would say 1.5 meter pronounced "1 meter 50" which is as easy than 4 foot 11 inches and much easier to use if I have 6 yards of clothes how many 5 foot 8 inches guy can I cover ? if I have 6 meter of clothes I just say 6/1.5=4 guys good luck with the example of yard/foot/inches without doing complicated conversion compared to a direct division). Conversion ? metric don't need them as much as imperial. So where the hell does it makes sense to use imperial ? There is a good reason the whole world moved on. The SI is as easy to grasp for people as any other system, but easier to teach, easier to use, and easier to NOT make error with.
So again *WHICH* advantage has imeprial over metric (except that you are used to it) ? before you answer about a particular felt flaw of metric, please google around to make sure it is a real flaw. Good luck on that.
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Bogota, Colombia initially implemented '123' as their emergency number (although they now allow 112 as well). I think Guatemala other Departments in Colombia use 123 as well.
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
Wrong. It was used because it was easy to locate the '9' in the dark. The old dial had a metal rest that you could use to locate 0 and (next to it) 9. See: rotary dial I know this since I read it 45 years ago in an old telephone box.
is that you just keep on pressing the digit 9.
Have you ever been in an office somewhere: You pick up a 'phone to make a call and need to press a 9 to get an outside line. Other desks may have 'phones that are directly connected to the outside, so you do not need the 9. With 999 it is easy, you just keep going and dial 9999.
You might think that is stupid, why not just dial and see what happens, if it does not work try again with/without the leading 9. The trouble is that when you make an emergency call you are probably under stress or may not have a lot of time - so keep it easy.
Having said that I see nothing wrong with having several in use everywhere: 999, 112, 911, .... very easy with a modern 'phone system.
I get disappointed that the jokes on TV shows aren't even funnier too.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
But what good is it doing to do me even in LONG run to have my 911 emergency number be the same as in some other country?
I mean...it isn't like we're going to change to metric, which would actually affect many more things between the countries that the emergency number.
But WFT is going to benefit me as a US citizen to 'harmonize' my emergency number to be the same as someone in say, France or Egypt?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
In US you don't. It's common to dial US numbers prefixed with 1 without any international code.
Just take the example of the party of daft Brit mountaniers that some years ago got stuck on a French mountain.
Because the UK had retained their obsolete 999 these dimwits did not know about the EU-wide implementation of 112 and they had to call friends at home to get the needed help.
Yes there is a need for a single number!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
While we really don't use 112- as a prefix in the US, I could see how someone might use 911- as a prefix elsewhere.
Yes. We already use it. It's a Porsche. Nice one, too.
20 minutes into the future
He he, try from outside the US :-)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
That's because you need to use the jingle to remember it. Including the long pause before the final 3.
Hmm, I don't have a + on my phone.
But I generally use 112 when calling emergency services from a mobile and I think it should be an international standard, not just a GSM standard. The only problem I know of is that 112 is fairly easy to dial by accident when joining cables if pulse dialing is supported.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It is in case you need to call an emergency number when travelling to other countries. Even Americans do that occasionally.
It was implemented. In the UK at least if you call an emergency number when you have a weak signal it will dramatically improve for the duration of the call as the cell tower reconfigures itself to use up to its maximum power and, as you say, drops any other call that was interfering with the call placed by your handset.
Link please! I think you're confusing this with the phone/sim* ability to use ANY available network (not only you provider's network) for an emergency call. This can be used as a starting point for further documentation. *in some countries you can dial the emergency number even if you don't have a sim card in your phone.
Well of course it's ingrained. Otherwise we could move past it all with a brand new system that no country currently uses, thus politically neutral. But everyone would object since they're already used to meters and grams and would have to retool everything. The problem isn't that America is reluctant to change, but that everyone is reluctant to change.
You usually get the + by pressing down the 0 key for a longer time.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
However, in Germany you always have to dial a 0 to the area code (unless you prefixed it with the international prefix for Germany), but you wouldn't dial a 0 before an emergency 911. That is, with "0911" or "+49911" you get to Nuremberg, with just "911" you'd get to the emergency call.
Indeed, the only numbers you can reach from a cell phone without starting your number with 0 or + are network internal numbers (like your mailbox) or emergency numbers. I don't think the 911 would make problems here.
A reason to not use 911 on cell phones could be that people might then try to use it also on landline phones where it might be the prefix of an ordinary phone number in the same area.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
0118 999 881 999 119 725....3?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
> the only time you'd start with a 1 is when dialing the NANP country code followed by an area code,
> or when dialing the emergency services.
Not quite. You forgot about 11-prefixed vertical service codes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_service_code ).
That said, AFAIK, nothing today actually USES 112, and no vertical service codes BEGIN with 112, so it could technically be used as an emergency number. Nevertheless, I see one of three things happening:
Scenario 1: ITU declares that 112 and 911 are emergency numbers everywhere, except in countries where it would screw up the phone system. The US yawns and says, "OK, we'll make 112 work here as an alias for 911".
Scenario 2: ITU declares that 112 must be the One and Only emergency number worldwide, and that countries must stop using 911 entirely. The US tells the ITU to go to hell. Canadians quietly do the same in less heated terms, but implement 112 as a fallback second emergency number anyway. The FCC plans to quietly do the same, then some halfwit elected official gets the stupid idea of making it the nationwide "patriot hotline" number to report suspicious un-American activity to DHS, and the whole thing goes down in flames.
Scenario 3: ITU declares that 112 is mandatory and 911 is optional. The US grudgingly agrees, asks carriers to implement it, and sets a compliance deadline of 2025.
Yeah but easier to accidently dial when joining cables.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Actually when introduced, the metric system was exactly that.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Of course, following the selection of scenario 3, cell phone bills start showing a Federal Emergency Services Expansion fee starting this January
This is why it's called International code, not National code.
So again *WHICH* advantage has imeprial over metric (except that you are used to it) ?
For construction purposes, the key advantage is that it's based on base-12, which has many more whole number divisors than base-10. Halves, quarters and thirds are trivial. That's why you can build a staircase without a calculator with dozenal math (you use the edge of the framing square that's marked in twelfths).
It's the most useful number system below base-60 (which is too hard for most humans). The metric system should have been regular and dozenal. Humans will get it right eventually, again (you'll note 'eleven' and 'twelve' are specially-named numbers).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That would've been Whitehall 1212
But why would you want to dial the number prefixed with 1 if you're already in the 1-zone?
> # of people using 112
> # of people using 911
> biggest # wins
> next topic on the agenda...
Standardizing on one language.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
A couple phones ago on a candy-bar format Nokia, more than once I butt dialed 911 by dialling 112. Even if I locked my phone, since it was an "emergency" call, it would make the call. After the second time, I swore I would stick to flip phones forever... that lasted until smart phones came around. I still haven't managed to butt dial on a locked iPhone, so I guess that's progress.
It's hard to tell from context whether you're not from the US or you're an American who has never used seven-digit dialing.
In the US, the first three digits of a ten-digit telephone number are the area code. Traditionally if you were calling someone who was in the same area code you were in you would not dial the area code but only the last seven digits of the telephone number. If you needed to call someone outside your area code, pressing 1 first allowed the telephone network to know that you were dialing a ten-digit number.
It used to be that when an area code ran out of telephone numbers, it would be split into multiple area codes. This meant that some numbers would change in the first three digits, which is inconvenient. The modern practice is to add a new area code that applies to the same geographical area as the old one, but that means that someone living next door to you may have a different area code than you do; the solution is to make everyone dial the full ten digits regardless of area code.
I think landline practice (7- or 10-digit dialing) still varies by region, but all modern cell phones use ten-digit dialing.
999 was originally chosen as a number that required some intent to dial, as it was the longest dial on a rotary phone.
Actually second longest. 000 would have been longer. But 0 already was used for the operator.
Why is this Insightful? It's completely irrelevant! Not every call is automatically an international call, you know. Or is it currently impossible to call India from the US?
The VAST majority do not.
Hell, I'd posit that the majority of people likely never leave their state....maybe not a majority, but likely a high number!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm not an American, but I live in US in an area which uses ten-digit dialing exclusively. Furthermore, I haven't used landlines for years, just cellphones.
I am familiar with the system that you describe, though - it's how it works in my own country, outside of a few cities - but I find that consistent 10-digit dialing is much easier to use.
Why does it matter what the international prefixes are?
As long as you're not dialing the number with + in front of it or your local exit code (00 in most European countries), you'll be quite OK.
911 and 112 do not have to be stored in your phone with + in front of them, since the idea is that the call is routed locally as close to your location as possible.
So you're OK with someone dying, because they will be unable to call for help, while abroad, rather than you being slightly inconvenienced while you MAY have to learn a new 3-digit number?
Just for the record, I don't care if either of those numbers is adopted or none of them. In my country we already had a change from 92 to 112 about 20 years ago. Guess what: no one had a problem. If we managed to learn a different number once, we can do it again.
Really?
I'm willing to bet that you do. I've had + on my very first analog cellphone that I was using more than 15 years ago.
I had it on every phone, ever since and I've never seen a mobile phone that did not have it.
I'll concede that it may not be printed on your keypad, but it's probably hiding somewhere around 0 or 1, if you keep the key pressed for a second or so. In any case read the manual, you're sure to find it.
A tend to agree. I've lived in the USA my whole life. I used to work for a company that made GSM basestation equipment, so I got in the habbit of always entering numbers into my phone with the full +1-NPA-NXX-XXXX format even if they were local to me. This later came in handy while traveling abroad. I could just take my SIM and put it in a local phone and call friends at home with no extra effort. It also came in handy when I moved to a different area code. I've lived outside of the area code I got my phone in for five years. It was no hassle for me to dial the whole 10 digit number as I've been used to doing it for so long.
I haven't heard of the UK's "999" being phased out, nor have I had the experience of accidentally dialling it while trying to unlock a phone. However, I have heard of cases where an excavator (American : "backhoe" ; UK : J.C.B. ; archaeologist's "big yellow trowel") has gone through a large phone cable, and while the repairs were being carried out hundreds of calls went to the emergency switchboard because of "make", [pause], "make", [pause], "make", "break", "make" sequences as te wires were reconnected "hot".
Yes, pulse dialling does still work. Pulse telephones do still exist, and do still work.
I suspect that someone has come up with a fix for this, since I've not heard of a repeat of the event since the early 2000s. But it is a distinct problem with "112" as an emergency number. Similarly however, the pulse train for "999" or "911" is considerably longer than that for "112". In short ... there isn't a simple, obvious solution.
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Hard to remember? For some reason that jingle has stuck with me for years.