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

Mon Jul 25 14:09:11 UTC 2005

Simon Waters <simonw at zynet.net> wrote:
> On Monday 25 Jul 2005 10:55 am, Peter Corlett wrote:
[...]
>> Does 112 work on non-GSM phones?
> In most of Europe dialing 112 on any phone on a public phone
> network, mobile or fixed, should get you an emergency operator.

When I wrote "non-GSM", I actually meant mobile phones in the USA that
don't use GSM technology so don't have the obligation to treat 112 as
special.

[...]
> My only concern is the UK government persists in teaching the old
> (local) 999 number, to avoid confusing the terminally stupid who
> can't cope with the idea of remembering two emergency numbers.

That's because 999 isn't "the old number". 112 is provided for EU
reasons, but is not *the* number for emergency services. 17099 is also
available (possibly only from BT lines), presumably as some sort of
artifact of BT's routing, but isn't exactly advertised either.

(Go on, how many Brits here knew about 17099 before I mentioned it
here?)

> As a result UK citizens end up either not knowing what to dial when
> abroad, or having to remember which country they are in when dialing
> for help.

If you don't even know what country you're in, I don't fancy your
chances telling emergency services where you are...

-- 
Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically - for our mutual good. The
lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking
to a moralist - but then what isn't?
								- Quentin Crisp