The Importance of 911 Communication Networks

Police officers in the field rely on radio operators to dispatch them to emergency calls and to provide backup and supervision of the situation in the field. The radio operators could not do their work effectively without a telephone network that allows the citizens to report their emergencies. In the United States this telephone system is the 911 network. During my internship I was able to observe and acknowledge the importance of this system and the great influence that it has on the daily operations of law enforcement agencies and the other public safety organizations that use it. The 911 system is important because it provides a quick and reliable way for citizens to report their emergencies. The network also allows for the fast and easy transfer of these emergency calls to a dispatch center from where they can be relayed to the officers in the field.

The 911 communication network consists of locally operated communication centers. Most of these centers are operated by county governments, except in metropolitan areas where local governments can have their own 911 networks (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). The 911 system allows for citizens to call a single number to report police, fire and medical emergencies to the appropriate agencies. The history of the three digits emergency number goes back to Great Britain, which adopted a 999 emergency phone number in 1937, and Canada, that followed suit in 1959 (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). It wasn’t until 1968 that the 911 single number emergency system began to be adopted in the US, and the first 911 call was made in the town of Haleyville, Alabama (Federal Communications Commission 2007). Over the next decade or so the 911 emergency number was adopted all over the United States, and today an estimated five hundred thousand calls are made to 911 daily across the country (Sampson 2002).

The 911 system provides an emergency number that is easy to remember, and that can instantly connect citizens to an operator that can relay the emergency to the dispatch center. Before the three digit system was created, every public safety agency had a different seven digit phone number that citizens had to call in the case of an emergency. The existence of thousands of these agencies across the country meant that oftentimes it would take a significant amount of time for citizens to get in touch with their public safety agencies in cases of an emergency, and that meant a delayed response that could cause human lives to be lost. Today’s system allows for citizens to call a single emergency phone number – 911, after which computers identify the address of the caller through the phone company database, and connect the caller instantly to the public safety agency in their area. In the case of mobile phones, computers connect the caller to the agency which is closest to the wireless tower that picked up the phone call. When an operator answers the phone call, he or she can automatically see the address of the caller (Dispatch Monthly Magazine 2007). This means that an operator already has an address to which he/she can dispatch units immediately, even in the case where citizens are unable to speak, or clearly report their problem.

After the 911 operator makes contact with the complainant, he/she can take a quick report of the problem and send the report to a dispatcher almost instantly. In the agency where I interned the dispatch report was sent automatically to the agency that handles those kinds of emergencies. A police, fire or medical emergency radio operator gets the report, and he/she can dispatch the proper units to the scene of the emergency. This allows for a very fast reaction time from when a citizen first places a 911 call, reports the problem, and the report is passed on to the proper agency which dispatches a unit. Fast reaction times allow police, fire and ambulance units to reach the site of the call in minutes, and attend to the emergency while it is still in progress, saving lives and maintaining the safety of the public.

Emergency reporting systems have come a long way from the time when citizens had to dial the individual number of their emergency agency. Today a single national emergency phone number allows for emergencies to be reported quickly and reliably. The 911 system allows the proper emergency units to be dispatched to the site of the problem in minutes. This means that police officers, firemen, and paramedics can arrive on-scene at emergencies while there are still in progress, allowing them to effectively deal with these emergencies. Although the 911 system handles one hundred and eighty three million phone calls nationally every year (Sampson 2002), it has been a very successful network, saving lives, and maintaining the safety of American citizens for over forty years.

References

Dispatch Monthly Magazine. 2007. “911 Information.” Dispatch Monthly Magazine, RetrievedJanuary 9, 2008. http://www.911dispatch.com/911/index.html

Federal Communications Commission. 2007. “911 Consumer Information.”Washington,DC: Federal Communications Commission, RetrievedJanuary 9, 2008. http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/services/911-services/consumer.html

Sampson, Rana. 2002. Misuse and abuse of 911.Washington,DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.