Dialing 911 not in you cell phone area code

[pete6032]

If My cell phone number is an area code in Los Angeles and I'm in New York City and I dial 911, would I get the LAPD or NYPD?

 

[lxskllr]

I'm pretty sure it's location aware.

 

[IGemini]

I'm pretty sure it's location aware.

Yup. Last year when I got struck by a drunk driver and had to call 911 I was half-expecting my NY number would need to be transferred. That wasn't the case, I got local dispatch first.

 

[jersiq]

You get the local Public Serving Answering Point.

Each PSAP has a 'real' telephone number that is called when the emergency number (911) is dialed. The telecommunications operator is responsible for associating all landline numbers with the most applicable (often the nearest) PSAP, so that when emergency number is dialed, the call is automatically routed to the most suitable PSAP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-safety_answering_point

 

[Ketchup]

I'm pretty sure it's location aware.

It is. It will send the dispatch that is nearest to the cell tower you are using for the call.

 

[John Connor]

That's the thing, it will send to nearest tower and that tower my be located in another town which means dispatch would have to transfer your call to your town's dispatch. I was in my town and called 911, in fact right in town and I got the town about 25 miles east of me! She had to transfer my call. That doesn't happen all the time, but it can.

Now I believe by an act of Congress you can text a message to 911. I wonder if they use your E-911 location to know where your at? Texting to 911 is not in all areas yet. I would call the police station to find out if they have that feature or not.

 

[Rakehellion]

If My cell phone number is an area code in Los Angeles and I'm in New York City and I dial 911, would I get the LAPD or NYPD?

You'll get the LAPD, who will likely arrive on the scene faster than the NYPD.

 

[lxskllr]

You'll get the LAPD, who will likely arrive on the scene faster than the NYPD.

and then beat the shit out of him.

 

[John Connor]

I couldn't find the video to save my soul!

 

[Brainonska511]

That's the thing, it will send to nearest tower and that tower my be located in another town which means dispatch would have to transfer your call to your town's dispatch. I was in my town and called 911, in fact right in town and I got the town about 25 miles east of me! She had to transfer my call. That doesn't happen all the time, but it can.

Now I believe by an act of Congress you can text a message to 911. I wonder if they use your E-911 location to know where your at? Texting to 911 is not in all areas yet. I would call the police station to find out if they have that feature or not.

Don't rely on Text-to-911. It's only available in a few areas at the moment:
http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911

 

[DCal430]

It is. It will send the dispatch that is nearest to the cell tower you are using for the call.

Not exactly true here, they will send the nearest that is in the same authorized service area. If you are near a boundary, and the closet ambulance is part of the other district, they will not respond to your call.

 

[GeekDrew]

Not exactly true here, they will send the nearest that is in the same authorized service area. If you are near a boundary, and the closet ambulance is part of the other district, they will not respond to your call.

What.

 

[Fayd]

and then beat the shit out of him.

but then the NYPD will arrive...

and beat the shit out of him.

 

[lxskllr]

but then the NYPD will arrive...

and beat the shit out of him.

Moral of the story is block 911 on your phone so you don't risk getting the shit beat out of you.

 

[JEDIYoda]

You'll get the LAPD, who will likely arrive on the scene faster than the NYPD.

with guns drawn and a swat team on the way to beat the living stuffing out of you and then arrest you for using your cell phone to call 911!!

 

[John Connor]

What.

he doesn't know what he's talking about. If your call lands in a town outside of the town your in they will transfer the call to your town's dispatch as I already stated. It happened to me.

 

[GeekDrew]

he doesn't know what he's talking about. If your call lands in a town outside of the town your in they will transfer the call to your town's dispatch as I already stated. It happened to me.

My "what" was rhetorical. I know how it works... one of my offices is a PSAP.

 

[DCal430]

What.

Example: Here we have the river fire district, and the metro fire district. If you are calling in the river district, a metro ambulance will not respond to you even if it is closest.

 

[DCal430]

he doesn't know what he's talking about. If your call lands in a town outside of the town your in they will transfer the call to your town's dispatch as I already stated. It happened to me.

That wasn't what I was talking about at all.

 

[DCal430]

he doesn't know what he's talking about. If your call lands in a town outside of the town your in they will transfer the call to your town's dispatch as I already stated. It happened to me.

Also here many towns and city do not provide emergency service, these are done by special districts whose boundaries are not the same as any town
A town my be split into two districts, a district could include multiple parts of towns and cities.

 

[John Connor]

I know about districts. I hear about districts on the scanner all the time.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Typically one centre can handle calls for areas they don't typically take calls for. They have that as redundancy if there is any issues at one centre, whether physically or infrastructure wise.

We lost a piece of equipment in our central office a while back, it was basically an old transport shelf and had tons of data circuits and stuff on it, including 911 circuits heading to the DMS phone switch. The whole setup is redundant, but the entire shelf just completely took a dump including all the redundancy. In simple terms you can think of it as a server with two PSUs and the whole server itself takes a dump. Very unusual especially for a big piece of equipment like this.

Long story short all of 911 was down for every single one of our customers. Pretty big region. Probably over 100k customers. So we ended up hard coding 911 in our phone switch to go to our local PD who were able to handle the calls while we fix the transport shelf.

That was a fun night...

 

[GeekDrew]

Example: Here we have the river fire district, and the metro fire district. If you are calling in the river district, a metro ambulance will not respond to you even if it is closest.

How does that have any relevance to the discussion at hand?

 

[DCal430]

How does that have any relevance to the discussion at hand?

It is relevant, because the person claimed the closest emergency vehicle will respond, I was pointing out that isn't true, the closest that is also part of the same service area will respond.

What the person stated wasn't factually true, and I was correcting it.

This is important because if I were to call 911 the closest fire station with an ambulance is about 2 miles away, but they do not service my area, so they will not respond to my call. instead an station about 5 miles away will respond, because they are the closest who also services my area. The persons statement implied the one 2 miles away will respond, but they won't because they aren't allowed to.

 

[GeekDrew]

It is relevant, because the person claimed the closest emergency vehicle will respond, I was pointing out that isn't true, the closest that is also part of the same service area will respond.

What the person stated wasn't factually true, and I was correcting it.

This is important because if I were to call 911 the closest fire station with an ambulance is about 2 miles away, but they do not service my area, so they will not respond to my call. instead an station about 5 miles away will respond, because they are the closest who also services my area. The persons statement implied the one 2 miles away will respond, but they won't because they aren't allowed to.

Nobody even mentioned vehicles or response to a call, until you. This thread is about call completion.