911 question for anyone who knows more than I do

[Mach123]

All I know is I’m jealous you are that isolated because I used to live in a place like that when I was a teenager and we got cows in the yard once that took inadvertently the laundry off the clothesline. Here at the beach we are very close together and it’s summer. I almost hate going out in the yard but, we got new neighbors in the back recently and it’s better so far. I hope you work out the situation with the phones !

 

[internal]

It's possible I forgot to disconnect the computer, but it's not possible I had anything to do with connecting the phone to the wi-fi.

do you have a router? you can connect your devices to your home network if you have one. but if you just have a modem with built in wifi. the only possible explanation is that you forgot to turn it off.

if the ssid is undetectable by the cellphone (modem/router turned off. ergo no internet.) it would not be physically possible for the phone to connect to it.

however if you have a router. the router can work with the modem turned off. it will connect your devices together. but those devices will not be connected to the greater internet.

 

[Freida]

Might be easier to call the 911 center's office line directly, rather than calling the so office. Because if they are anything like my guys they have no freaking idea how it works. They just think dispatch is magic

I'd tell them you are researching voip phones and want to know how it works when you call in from a cell phone that may or may not have a wifi connection in your area. You are asking what info it shows on the ani/ali screen and how accurate it is. I had to do that with my dad because he had a landline from verizon, which didn't show any info when he dialed 911 because it's was technically a cell phone. iI was NOT happy because they had assured me it would show his location.

Don't worry about looking paranoid - it's actually impressive when someone thinks to ask these kind of questions because the last thing you want in an emergency is to have no info pop up. You can even ask them to do a practice call with you to confirm what info they get.

 

[Freida]

@Mach123 Ya it used to be rural here, then city folk moved in so we had lots of cow/vs/city dude calls
I even got to send a rookie out to llamas blocking a main road - told him it was his job to figure out how to lasso them!
yep...dispatch can be evil that way....

 

[scout86]

do you have a router?

Yes, there's a router, and that's the only wi-fi that could be involved with this.

Might be easier to call the 911 center's office line directly

How would I find their contact info, do you think? Because, yeah, I'd be surprised if the local sheriff's office knows a lot about the background of how the system works. To be honest, I was pretty surprised by how much information the guy apparently had on his screen. Because of where I live, and because I was calling from a cellphone, I didn't expect them to have much info at all. I didn't start out with my exact location because the cows were on the move and I thought the priority would be to get someone moving towards the main highway, where the risk of a major crash was going to be higher. It's a really big county, geographically and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the closest deputy was an hour away. Anyhow, I was surprised because he seemed to know where I was calling from and who I probably was without me telling him.

@Mach123 , I'm not sure I could stand that! I just bought this place a year & a half ago and one of the reasons was my old place wasn't far enough in the middle of nowhere. (This was an upgrade for other reasons too though.) My goal in life is a place at the end of a dead end road, where I can lock the gate. LOL

 

[Freida]

you should be able to google it under your county government - though it can be strangely hard to find it sometimes.
Worst case you can call the sheriffs office main line and ask them for the office number to the 911 center. If you are in a really small town dispatch may be in the same building and run by the SO, but they should still have a supervisor or someone who can answer questions about how the system works.

 

[internal]

Yes, there's a router, and that's the only wi-fi that could be involved with this

okay so this makes sense then. if you have a router and it was still active that could have attached your phone.

however it would only be wifi. not internet. because of that. no one else could have interacted with that network. if the modem were disconnected.

the wifi network generated by the router would not be able to be online without the modem. (this is the equipment from the isp that lets you connect to the rest of the world.)

the router just "splits" the signal. but it can generate its own secure little pod within just your range.

hope that helps!

 

[Mach123]

Yes, there's a router, and that's the only wi-fi that could be involved with this.

How would I find their contact info, do you think? Because, yeah, I'd be surprised if the local sheriff's office knows a lot about the background of how the system works. To be honest, I was pretty surprised by how much information the guy apparently had on his screen. Because of where I live, and because I was calling from a cellphone, I didn't expect them to have much info at all. I didn't start out with my exact location because the cows were on the move and I thought the priority would be to get someone moving towards the main highway, where the risk of a major crash was going to be higher. It's a really big county, geographically and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the closest deputy was an hour away. Anyhow, I was surprised because he seemed to know where I was calling from and who I probably was without me telling him.

@Mach123 , I'm not sure I could stand that! I just bought this place a year & a half ago and one of the reasons was my old place wasn't far enough in the middle of nowhere. (This was an upgrade for other reasons too though.) My goal in life is a place at the end of a dead end road, where I can lock the gate. LOL

My cell shows I’m on the north shore. At&T says it can’t be fixed. It has the right location on some things and is always wrong in others. I’m an emergency who knows?

 

[scout86]

Ongoing research here. Yesterday I trimmed some horses for a family where the dad is a deputy in a neighboring county. (The county where my call was originally routed, as it happens.) He said they have a fairly new system where dispatch if told who owns the phone and the location of the phone shows up on the map on the screen automatically. The newer system also allows texts to 911. Although his county isn't really capable of responding to them yet. Texts are sent to yet another neighboring county where they are read and then the message passed on to area counties that aren't fully text capable yet.

I’m an emergency who knows?

My impression, based on yesterday's conversation, it that this will depend on where you are. Here, the phone company doesn't seem to have anything to do with it, they can local your phone, based on the GPS, anytime, without dealing with the phone company. If we have that kind of system here, it must be coming nationwide. Like I said, this is a pretty rural area. The closest town it 10 miles away and has about 600 people. The whole county has less that 30,000 people but it takes about 2 hours to drive from the north end to the south end.

 

[Freida]

He is sort of correct. It's the crap shoot of technology. Some calls from cell phones show where you are within 10 feet - others show just the lat/long location of the cell phone tower your call pinged from so it can be miles off. And that will vary by where you physically are. So even if dispatch gets a good location on you at your home they may not get one if you are a mile away.

When he is talking about is that in some cases 911 can call the company your phone is thru and ask them to ping your phone to try to get a location based on the cell tower but it's not always accurate.

Told ya they think we are magic!

the text to 911 thing requires special equipment so it's a work in progress for many centers. The good - if you can't talk you can still call. The bad? dispatch has to work twice as hard because they can't interrupt you to ask questions. They just have to wait for your return text and that slows the process down a lot.

 

[user27357]

@Freida- if you are still here- does multiple after-call pings mean I am being triangulated by the dispatcher? I have made 911 calls from rural points and been pinged (phone buzzes and there is a record of a cal having been made) but one time in particular I was pinged multiple times. I always wondered if I was being triangulated because at first I didn't come back where I said I was (I was on the road again after I was certain there were no victims in the car fire I came upon- not a good time to be in the middle of nowhere hoping the "victim" wasn't going to borrow my truck next) I figured they were trying to see if I was calling in a false call. Sound about right for multiple multiple pings?

 

[user27357]

911 texts should get an automatic reply- "use the phone in your hand sweetheart"
The FCC made radio stations buy licenses in return for protection of their frequency from use by unlicensed stations. They also had to be a part of the emergency broadcast system and they had to provide so many hours of news and public service announcements to maintain that license.
Why full coverage of the area wasn't made a requirement for FCC enforcement of the phone company frequencies is beyond me. Maybe thats a fine they would rather just pay than comply with? Full coverage would save so may lives. Why should a snowmobiler need an Epirb or a sat link, why should a climber need one, why should a responding officer need one? The government dropped the ball and the phone companies wont pick it up until the money makes it worthwhile. The savings must offset the loss of human life. My phone works everywhere I regularly go except for my house and property, same for many of my neighbors. we have to get our calls on the internet by using a "network extender".