Editor wrote:
> Granted, I live in a very small town, population 8800, one phone
> exchange for the entire town, the police dispatcher responds for the
> sheriff also, and the city offices and they receive 'two or three
> 911 calls per day'.
But what happens if you're in a county of 880,000 where there are a
lot more 911 calls per day and they don't know everyone?
I don't know about the rest of the country, but in our region
telephone exchanges, municipal boundaries, and post office names are
totally separate. Some fire/rescue/police units are merged between
municipalities, others are separate.
In our county, if the local town is busy, help is dispatched from the
next town that is available. The problem is that a distant town may
not be familiar with new streets in ever expanding suburban
developments and cul-de-sacs.
> You also raised an 'issue' with power. If you use a battery backup
> unit you get around any problems with power. I have heard people ask,
> but what about the DSL/cable line; their power could go out also.
Yes,
> but there is a chance power could be out at the phone exchange also.
> I guess nothing is perfect.
When we have a commercial power failure, our cable TV system goes out
as well. It takes longer for that to be restored than commercial
power. They tell us the fibre optic cable has many sensitive
amplifiers and needs more care than the prior analog coax.
As to landline phone reliability, in my many years at this
location, commercial power went out a lot, but never phone
service. I only remember when unavailable dial tone, which
was during an unexpected extremely severe storm that drove up
phone usage.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Lisa, what do you do in a case
like Brooklyn, New York where by the dispatcher's own admission,
"we do not answer this phone after 10 PM"? I guess VOIP would never
work there, would it? I would have been sort of ashamed to admit to
a member of the public that a police department (especially in New
York City!) closes down its phone line at 10 PM, but I guess being
brazen is what makes some public 'servants' good at their job. If a
small town can arrange its police department to serve the public
efficiently, without a lot of sass-back to the public they are expected
to serve, then why can't your so-called county of 880,000? I think it
is about time our public servants get told "either learn to do the job
right and do it right -- or we will get people who can". Maybe you, or
one of the other Bell System apologists in our readership can tell me
why it is that VOIP carriers are expected to be the ones to have to
do the twisting and turning and maneuvering to get their ways in line
to make it easier for the public servants? Why do the public servants
simply refuse to accept the fact that as times change, *their procedures*
have to change as well? What the hell did any of those people do
back in the 1960's when our nation was crossbar with no immediate ID
on calls? You want a job as a police dispatcher? Then you, by-God,
either get an encyclopedic knowledge of streets and intersections and
addresses in your town or don't get in the way of the people who do;
if your worker's "union" insists you have to have a job you are
probably not qualified for anyway, is that the public or VOIP carriers
at fault? PAT]
Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:39:24 -0500
From: BobGoudreau@withheld at request>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: What Happened to FM Channels 1-199?
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Garrett Wollman wrote:
> Channel 200 is 87.9; 201 is 88.1, and so on up to 300 which is 107.9
Now that we've covered the history of VHF Channel 1, can anyone
explain why the official FM channel numbers are in the range 200-300
instead of 1-101?
Bob Goudreau
Cary, NC
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com