[Asterisk-Users] E911 Testing !

[Joe Greco]

> Ok, So maybe too much information for you. 911 is a mystery to most 
> people and regardless if you are a carrier or not this is how it works. 

Yes, but it's about as useful as telling the guy who is calling in to the
cable company to order HBO that the signal arrives through the cable
company's Satellite Integrated Receiver-Descrambler prior to being fed in
to the Sub-Band Extended Agile Signal Processor, which then feeds to ...
well, you get the idea.  Yes, there's a backside to the technology, but
for the most part, people doing installs don't care or even want to know.

> In short, you better make sure it works. Not just because you may be 
> liable (if something happens, everyone gets sued, right?) but because 
> it's the "right thing to do"(tm). You *want* 911 to work. Really.

Of course.

> Now some areas are perfectly happy with you just casually dialing 911 
> and making sure it works. Sure they want it to work too. But this is 
> **highly** dependent on what area you are in. Everyone has their own 
> policy. I personally would never "start out" by trying to call 911 and 
> seeing how they react.

I don't think anyone suggested that.

As an incidental note:  I once ran into an installer (for the City of
Milwaukee, no less) who was working in a building I'm familiar with.  One
night, he apparently hooked up his buttset to a non-Centrex line and for
some reason he was trying to dial something that started with "11", but
thought he was on a Centrex ("dial 9 first") line.  I am still unclear as
to what that would have been, so don't ask.  He hung up on the 911
operator.  The police came.  Rumor is actually that he somehow did this
*twice* in a row, but I don't know - either way, the moral of the story 
is that if you do dial 911, be damn sure to talk to them.  Especially if
it is /not/ an emergency.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.