Re: 911, was You're all over thinking this (was: Re: Vonage Selects TCS For VoIP E911 Service)

["Jay R. Ashworth" <jra () baylink com>]

On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 02:01:33PM +0100, Michael.Dillon () btradianz com wrote:
> > This whole "single number" hype should end anyway.
>
> In Russia it is simple, there are three numbers:
>
> 01 - Fire Service
> 02 - Police
> 03 - Ambulance/Medical response
>
> Easy to remember especially because the number is written
> in large figures on the side of every emergency response
> vehicle. You could even retrofit these numbers into other
> countries because they are two digit numbers.

Personally, I assert that that's bad design for two reasons: 

1) they're too *short*: they pre-empt too much dialling pattern space,
and they're hard to recognize as what they are, compared for example to
9-1-1 and 1-1-2.

2) it shouldn't, in general, be the place of *someone reporting an
emergency* to have to decide what kind of response they want.  In the
US, for example, medical emergencies are often first-responded by
firefighter-paramedics, because there's a firestation closer than the
nearest ambulance.  There's no way a caller could know what's closer...

Cheers,
-- jr 'ah... *telecom* :-)' a
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra () baylink com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

      "...the rough cannot be mean and the love cannot be true, and that's
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        -- Bill Shatner, on being an anti-hero.