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."

Comments

Why not both?

[crazyjj]

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.
 

Re:Why not both?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK added 112 as an alternative many years ago, so while 999 is the popularly ingrained emergency number there would be no problem in the UK with a phone having 112 as the default emergency number.

Re:Why not both?

[wvmarle]

My phone is doing just that already. When I key in either '112' or '911' it displays 'emergency call' (just tried; of course without making the actual call). Interestingly '999' (the actual emergency call number here) is not recognised. Probably because I'm using a UK-origin Android version on my phone.

Actually I wonder: why is there a number for emergency calls from mobiles? Why can't the mobile phone just tell the network "this is an emergency call, please put me through to the local emergency call centre". Then the phone can link one or more numbers to that. It is already so that if there is no SIM in the phone or you're out of reach of your network, as long as there is any network available you can use it for emergency calls.

Re:Why not both?

[Anonymous Coward]

For two, most switches use the first digit being a "1" to denote the beginning of a long distance call.

In the US perhaps, it's mostly 0 in Europe from what I've seen.

Going with '112' breaks a perfectly good standard in a country that at least has a standard phone number format.

Going with '911' breaks a perfectly good standard in multiple countries that already agreed on a standard phone number format.

Ah well, http://xkcd.com/927/ right?

Re:Why not both?

[FireFury03]

most switches use the first digit being a "1" to denote the beginning of a long distance call.

Untrue. In most (but not all) of the world, the international dialing prefix is 00

And in the UK, the prefix 0 denotes a non-local call (i.e. outside your own STD code) whilst 1 usually denotes a service local to your specific telco (customer services, etc) although there are exceptions to this, such as the 118xxx numbers for directory enquiries. Numbers starting 2-9 are local (within your STD code) except for 999 (emergency services).

Going with '112' breaks a perfectly good standard in a country that at least has a standard phone number format.

The problem with this attitude is that mobile standards are international, and there are numerous countries with standard domestic number formats that are not the same as the US's. Unfortunately, the US attitude always seems to be to disagree with any international standardisation process rather than reach a compromise (I think anyone who has worked on the international telephone network protocols will agree with this - most of the ANSI protocols are different to the ITU recommendations for no reason other than to be different)

Re:Why not both?

[vmlemon]

In fact, at least with GSM, and UMTS-based handsets, when you dial the local emergency services number, the number itself isn't actually dialled. Instead, a call with a specific "Emergency" flag is made, and the network deals with routing appropriately.

Re:Why not both?

[plover]

Using "1" as a trunk code in North America is almost meaningless these days. Digital switches route calls based on all the digits, they no longer have to be directed to find a trunk line before passing the rest of the digits through. I wouldn't be overly surprised if there are still a few local exchanges in the remote corners of America that still use electromechanical relays or really old ESS switches that need the "1" prefix for accessing a trunk line, but most networks can and will simply route any ten digit number to the correct destination without complaint.

"Dial '1' for long distance" these days is little more than a 'courtesy' reminder to people that "we will charge you extra money for this call because we've convinced Congress and the FCC that long distance calls still cost us extra money." In reality, those charges represent exactly the reasons that most people abandon their PSTN carriers and switch to digital phone carriers. I'd still be using the traditional wires (and paying the traditional phone company) if my local carrier hadn't stuck an unwanted "long distance access fee" on my bill after I discontinued long distance service.

Regarding "standards to reduce confusion", there are three standards for emergencies: 911, 112, and 000, and they all depend on where you came from and what you learned. If implementing them costs nothing, and there are no collisions in the network, supporting them all reduces confusion during emergencies - the one thing in an emergency situation that you don't want.

Re:Why not both?

[Solandri]

Unfortunately, the US attitude always seems to be to disagree with any international standardisation process rather than reach a compromise

Phone networks originated in the U.S. If the international standard differs from and is incompatible with that of the U.S., you need to be asking why it differs. Not why the U.S. had the temerity to keep its existing system, instead of uprooting it and replacing it wholesale it to comply with a different standard.

That's not to say the standard is illegitimate - maybe the U.S. system was stupidly designed and not conducive to expansion across the globe, in which case it would be perfectly justified. But your assumption should be that the first system was the standard. And if a different standard was chosen elsewhere, you should be questioning that decision first. Not immediately criticizing the first system developed for not changing to adopt the new standard.

0118-999-881-999-119-7253

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the UK standard 0118-999-881-999-119-7253?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ

Whats wrong with making it /really/ easy

[MrDoh!]

It's trivial to use; 0118 999 881 999 119 725

3

why can't we standardise on that?

Re:Whats wrong with making it /really/ easy

[Twinbee]

Vid for those in the dark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ

Well, the answer is obvious then.

[sootman]

> 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!

Re:Reasons for either

[Chrisq]

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

[Bogtha]

911 is currently used in North America, while 112 is standard across the EU and in many other countries worldwide.

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.

Re:112

[jeffy210]

So is metric, look how well America uses that :-\

Re:Prior use

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Prior use

[NevarMore]

The new number is so easy to remember! It's a dandy jingle, 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

Re:Prior use

[CatBandit]

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.

GSM allows 5 emergency call codes

[kybred]

Per the 3GPP specs for GSM, the SIM has an item for Emergency Call Codes (EFecc) that can contain up to 5 call codes, each up to 3 digits. If any of these codes is dialed the phone will put the call through as an emergency call. This is to allow for localization of the emergency numbers. Since in a mobile, you enter the entire number to be called then hit SEND (or the equivalent), the switch doesn't have to decide how to route your call as you are dialing it, like is done for landlines.

I think the mobile phones are the easy part, the hard part will be the 'other devices' which presumably will include landlines.

Re:Prior use

[jittles]

I was hoping they would use 867-5309... I miss Jenny.

Re:Prior use

[WillerZ]

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.

Re:Prior use

[remus.cursaru]

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.

Re:Prior use

[Miamicanes]

> 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.