First Responders Need Your Location

The number of people giving up their home land line telephone service continues to increase.  Many look at the monthly bill from Cincinnati Bell or other phone companies and decide that what they are getting is not worth the price.  For example, many traditional phone companies charge extra for making long distance calls.  Long distance service is usually included at no extra cost with mobile phone plans and most of the internet-based home phone services.  It may seem easy to decide to just dump the hard-wired service, but a little investigation could save more than your money.

First responders have expressed concern about the increased number of calls coming into the 911 dispatch centers from mobile phones.   Many of these calls come in without an automatic location indication of the caller.  If the person needing help is disoriented, confused, or perhaps from out of town and not familiar with the local area, they may not be able to provide the exact location of the emergency and their response may be delayed.  Calls coming in from traditional land lines automatically indicate to the 911 dispatcher the location of the caller.

There has been proposed legislation at the Federal level requiring all mobile phones and carriers to have location software installed on all phones.  To date it is not required and the mobile phone lobby is fighting the requirement.

But it is not only mobile phones that have this issue. Many households have given up the traditional land lines and opted for an internet-based service.  Providers like Vonage, Time Warner, majicjack, basictalk, ooma and others use your existing telephones and wiring in your house, but instead of connecting to a traditional telephone company network like Cincinnati Bell, they use your internet connection to place calls.  These internet phone services are often much less expensive and a can be a good option. 

If you do decide to jettison your land line and go with one of these internet-based services there is an important set up configuration you must do before you begin using it.  This set up identifies the specific location of the telephone to any 911 operator.  A traditional land line automatically is set up to identify the phone’s exact street address.  

So, when you first install the new service be sure to activate the 911 option.  It could save your life.