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E 9-1-1
What is Enhanced 911?
In the last 10 years, the face of Public Service Emergency Communications has changed at such a frantic pace that it is a challenge to try to keep it current.
It is estimated that 25% of the population moves yearly. Ours is a transient society. We travel often and most of us move or relocate several times in our lifetime. As sophisticated as our society has become, there is still a problem with people knowing exactly where they are. This may sound funny to you, but it's not when you are faced with an emergency. How many of you really know exactly where you are once you leave your house? Would you be able to give directions to your exact location, no matter where you are in any town or city? Of course not!! Imagine someday that no matter where you are in the United States or Canada, you call 9-1-1 and the person at the other end of the line will know exactly where you are by reading a display screen in front of them!!
Before 9-1-1, a citizen with a public safety need would call a phone number provided in the phone book for emergency services. There would be a number for police, a different number for fire and possibly even a different number for emergency medical problems. Citizens either knew these numbers, would look them up, or dial "0" for the operator to connect them to the proper agency. All of these took time, where minutes and sometimes seconds could mean the difference between life and death!
Then Basic 9-1-1 came about. This was a dramatic improvement over dialing a seven digit number, which at times of stress were difficult to remember. This number would go to one location and that location would transfer the call to the correct department. Basic 9-1-1 offered the citizen an easy to remember number to dial, but not much else. The 9-1-1 operator only knew that the caller was dialing 9-1-1. They did not know from which phone number or address the call came from.
Enhanced 9-1-1 then came on the scene. The features of Enhaced 9-1-1 include ANI (Automatic Number Identification) and ALI (Automatic Location Identification). These two features display, on a computer screen, the caller's phone number, address and any other pertinent data that a responding agency should be aware of. The screen also identifies which agency should respond for law enforcement, fire or EMS.