Can 911 Really Know Your Address?

Factual Questions
1

With more and more people rejecting their landline phone service, the elusive “they” warn against this. “They” claim that the 911 dispatcher cannot know your home address if you (or, say a young child calling for you) calls on a cell phone and the victim (and others) is/are unable to give the address.

Is this true, or just hype to discourage one from discontinuing their landline phone service? Interesting enough, it seems the majority of people under 35 only have cellular service at home.

So what’s the SD on this? And, does 911 really pull-up your address when you call from a landline? Is that like some kind of caller id to the max, or what? For the record, the few times I call they’ve asked for the address. But, maybe it is for verification purposes?

So, Dopers, what are the facts on this?

  • Jinx
2

[QUOTE=Jinx]
With more and more people rejecting their landline phone service, the elusive “they” warn against this. “They” claim that the 911 dispatcher cannot know your home address if you (or, say a young child calling for you) calls on a cell phone and the victim (and others) is/are unable to give the address.

Is this true, or just hype to discourage one from discontinuing their landline phone service?
[/QUOTE]
Yes they do know the calling address, based on the landline number cross-indexed to the utilities database. But the databases are not perfect, so they automatically crosscheck on the phone.

With cellphones, they don’t have these details, just the connecting cell tower. This may cover a very large area. I believe that all cell phones (in the US) will (in the future) have to provide GPS data to emergency services - there was a long lead time on this and I don’t know how close that point is.

Si

3

**si_blakely ** nailed it in one.

The deadline for US cellphones to have the GPS capability has been pushed back several times and is currently some time in 2008. Note that also requires every 911 answering center in the US to get an upgrade as well. Bickering over who was going to pay for all this has delayed implementation by about 5 years.

Here’s a good primer on 911 in general and the issues with cell- & VOIP-based phones: Enhanced 9-1-1 - Wikipedia

Google [E911] for more.

4

[QUOTE=Jinx]
With more and more people rejecting their landline phone service, the elusive “they” warn against this. “They” claim that the 911 dispatcher cannot know your home address if you (or, say a young child calling for you) calls on a cell phone and the victim (and others) is/are unable to give the address.

Is this true, or just hype to discourage one from discontinuing their landline phone service? Interesting enough, it seems the majority of people under 35 only have cellular service at home.

[/QUOTE]

An equally important part of the equation is making sure that your 911 call goes to the correct PSAP. If you call on a landline, it’s handled automatically by the phone company. On occasion, we’ve had to deal with incorrectly routed 911 calls, which makes things tough- on one occasion we had a 911 call which was routed to Las Vegas, NV! Our dispatchers had to get the information second hand from the Vegas dispatchers.

If you’re concerned, check with your local PSAP, they may have a direct-dial number you can use if 911 fails.

St. Urho
Paramedic

5

[QUOTE=Jinx]
does 911 really pull-up your address when you call from a landline? Is that like some kind of caller id to the max, or what?
[/QUOTE]
Not only does 911 have access to this info, but you can do it too. Go to Google, and simply enter the ten digits of any not-unlisted landline phone. You can include punctuation if you want, but just the ten digits works fine too.

6

[QUOTE=LSLGuy]
The deadline for US cellphones to have the GPS capability has been pushed back several times and is currently some time in 2008.
[/QUOTE]
This makes some of the info in Cecil’s column on cell phones & GPS seem amusingly dated.

7

In our town of 10,000, the cellphone 911 calls come in on the office line. We have no caller id on those lines and no way to know that it’s a 911 call or any way to find out where they are. A few times when we had to try to find the person who called, we would have to call the phone company, get them to trace the call, wait an hour, and get the cellphone number and carrier. The most we could find out after another 2 hours of faxing and phone calls would be the subscribers mailing address.

The landline 911 calls would come in on a special line with a monitor attached that would give the name, address, phone number, closest fire station, and any medical notes that they’ve opted to have listed. We would always verify the information that was listed. Sometimes it was wrong or not updated recently enough. But at least we had something to go off of.

One thing I’ve told all my friends to do when calling 911 from a cell phone is give name, number, and location. Then you can worry about describing the problem. If you pass out or get cut off before giving your location, there isn’t much they can do.

8

[QUOTE=Keeve]
Not only does 911 have access to this info, but you can do it too. Go to Google, and simply enter the ten digits of any not-unlisted landline phone. You can include punctuation if you want, but just the ten digits works fine too.
[/QUOTE]

Hmmm. I’m listed, and this didn’t do anything for me. whitepages.com reverse lookup does though!

9

The information for landlines isn’t always correct. Someone at work had a heart attack and the ambulance got sent to the headquarters building of the company, not the satellite office where the victim was, about a mile away. I was told that this was because we got our phone service from the company PBX, located in the headquarters building.

10

[QUOTE=si_blakely]
<snip>I believe that all cell phones (in the US) will (in the future) have to provide GPS data to emergency services - there was a long lead time on this and I don’t know how close that point is.

Si
[/QUOTE]

Verizon stopped allowing cell phones without e-911 to be activated at least three years ago. However, I’m not sure when they plan on forcing those with older phones to comply. With their “New Every Two”, and “Backup Assistant”, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal for those affected.

11

[QUOTE=Jinx]
So what’s the SD on this? And, does 911 really pull-up your address when you call from a landline? Is that like some kind of caller id to the max, or what? For the record, the few times I call they’ve asked for the address. But, maybe it is for verification purposes?

So, Dopers, what are the facts on this?

  • Jinx
    [/QUOTE]

I know that this has been answered so allow me this anecdote.

At least once a month or so I hear a *‘911 hang up’ * call on my police scanner.
Dispatch usually says something like: *“PD units, just recieved a 911 hang up call from 123 Tony Montana drive apt 7, upon call back no answer” *
Usually when Officer Jon Q. Law arrives on scene more often than not he’ll report back to dispatch that its a kid messin’ with the phone.

12

Again, since this has been answered already, can I also share a story?

When I was a volunteer fireman, the county did not yet have the capacity to know a caller’s address. A woman called saying she was having trouble breathing, but only got the name of her street out, not the house number before she collapsed. The dispatcher could hear that the phone line was still open.

He instructed us to drive up and down the street blowing our air horn and when it sounded loudest over the phone, he told us to check all the houses. We found her and she got to the hospital in time.

13

[QUOTE=Jinx]
Is this true, or just hype to discourage one from discontinuing their landline phone service? Interesting enough, it seems the majority of people under 35 only have cellular service at home.
[/QUOTE]
Even though it’s true, it’s still just hype. The utility of being able to call 911 anywhere with cell coverage greatly outweighs the danger that I’d be in a situation where someone was calling 911 from my home nobody was able to speak, or knew what the address was.

And, while I don’t know if this is implemented, there is absolutely no reason that GPS service is necessary to exceed the service provided by a landline. Here’s my novel plan: They know what number it’s coming from, and they (should) be able to get the billing address of that cell number. If the call is coming from a cell tower that covers my house, go ahead and send a car by for the hell of it.

14

[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=]
Even though it’s true, it’s still just hype. The utility of being able to call 911 anywhere with cell coverage greatly outweighs the danger that I’d be in a situation where someone was calling 911 from my home nobody was able to speak, or knew what the address was.

And, while I don’t know if this is implemented, there is absolutely no reason that GPS service is necessary to exceed the service provided by a landline. Here’s my novel plan: They know what number it’s coming from, and they (should) be able to get the billing address of that cell number. If the call is coming from a cell tower that covers my house, go ahead and send a car by for the hell of it.
[/QUOTE]

How would they know your billing address? I guess they can start contacting every cellphone provider until they get lucky. Unless it is a prepaid phone. Here is what really happens. If a 911 hangup comes from a landline police cars are sent to see if there is a problem. If a hangup comes in from a cellphone the call gets dumped and the dispatchers go back whatever it was they were doing without a second thought.

15

One day, I don’t know how I dialed 911 by accident and hung up after a second. A little after that happened I had a knock on the door from a police officer who was responding to the call. I apologized to the officer for the trouble and he said that they had to check out all the calls they get like that.

16

Another anectdote…

My old office had a dial-up modem. In order to get an outside line, we had to dial “91” then the number…

91-1-800-123-4567

If the secy dialed the first two digits too quickly, it would go out as a 911 call and the police would respond.

17

[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=]
Even though it’s true, it’s still just hype. The utility of being able to call 911 anywhere with cell coverage greatly outweighs the danger that I’d be in a situation where someone was calling 911 from my home nobody was able to speak, or knew what the address was.

And, while I don’t know if this is implemented, there is absolutely no reason that GPS service is necessary to exceed the service provided by a landline. Here’s my novel plan: They know what number it’s coming from, and they (should) be able to get the billing address of that cell number. If the call is coming from a cell tower that covers my house, go ahead and send a car by for the hell of it.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not saying that it’s useless call 911 with a cell phone. I’m just saying that getting any kind of location from a cell phone is just not going to happen in a lot of places.

Our 911 center takes the calls for our entire county, and if you how big western-state counties are, you’ll know how much area that covers. I25 runs right down the middle so we get calls from people who are just passing through that have had a car accident (or need to find a bathroom, but that’s another discussion). They don’t know where they are and we can’t find them.

The idea of using cell tower location is a good idea. But it isn’t happening. If you don’t know where you are, we can’t find you. I’m still bothered by a call I got from a woman who had gone on a drive with her husband who was now threatening her and himself with a gun. All she knew was that they were on some back roads within 15 miles of town. First we got her to leave the car, then spent the next 40 minutes trying to figure out where she was. “Where did you start out from? What direction did you go then? What do you see?” The officers eventually found her by driving all over the area.

Getting a call traced from the landline is easy. That only takes about 10 minutes. But once they find out it’s a cell phone, it gets messy. We have to call up the cellphone company and start their special paperwork, including officer signature and supervisor signature. They never gave us the cell-tower location. It takes -hours- to get a cellphone subscribers mailing address (if it’s a prepaid cellphone, there is nothing we can do).

There is a lot of talk about all the abilities that the cellphones, cellphone companies and E911 can do. It would be great if it was actually being done. I don’t know what it’s like in big cities, but in small towns, it’s just not happening. Even if the small town is taking calls for a large, busy area.
Related story: A man driving on the interstate broke down and called 911. He didn’t know where he was, but he had a GPS. He gave us his coordinates, but we don’t have internet access in the office. We weren’t able to even use Google to help the guy (luckily, the operator called his wife at her work and had her look up the coordinates).

18

[QUOTE=Loach]
How would they know your billing address? I guess they can start contacting every cellphone provider until they get lucky. Unless it is a prepaid phone. Here is what really happens. If a 911 hangup comes from a landline police cars are sent to see if there is a problem. If a hangup comes in from a cellphone the call gets dumped and the dispatchers go back whatever it was they were doing without a second thought.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know the exact mechanism. How do they know your address for a landline?

I presume that there’s a big database somewhere that maps telephone numbers to physical addresses. Why couldn’t cell phone numbers be entered into that database as well?

I realize that in reality, that’s not how it works. The local 911 center isn’t set up that way, the information isn’t available, etc. All I’m saying is that GPS isn’t necessary to replicate the landline response. If you’re in your house calling on your cell phone, there is no reason we have to add extra hardware to the cell phone to respond in that case.

And, of course, if you’re not at home, then a cellphone is clearly better than no phone at all.

19

[QUOTE=Strangelove]
Related story: A man driving on the interstate broke down and called 911. He didn’t know where he was, but he had a GPS. He gave us his coordinates, but we don’t have internet access in the office. We weren’t able to even use Google to help the guy (luckily, the operator called his wife at her work and had her look up the coordinates).
[/QUOTE]

You don’t have maps?

Are there any standard geographic coordinate systems or grid reference systems being used by emergency services?

20

[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=]
I don’t know the exact mechanism. How do they know your address for a landline?

I presume that there’s a big database somewhere that maps telephone numbers to physical addresses. Why couldn’t cell phone numbers be entered into that database as well?

[/QUOTE]

But that’s not the way it works, as I understand it. It’s not the phone number that is mapped to the address. It’s the land line itself, that is, the wire connection.

Ed