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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?
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.
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.
> 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!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
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.
The 911 goes back to the dial telephone days, when numbers could be dialled by line clicks. Nine is very unlikely to be mis-dialled, but took longer (9 or 10 pulses to send), and 1 was quick, so 911 was a good compromise. In the UK 999 would almost never be dialled by line noise but took longer.
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
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.
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?
The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
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.
I think the mobile phones are the easy part, the hard part will be the 'other devices' which presumably will include landlines.
I was hoping they would use 867-5309... I miss Jenny.
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.
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).
+ 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
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."
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.
> 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.