Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 999 may be scrapped for mobiles

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 18:02:44 -0500

LONDON
16/03/03 - Business section

999 may be scrapped for mobiles
Simon Fluendy, Mail on Sunday

THE traditional 999 emergency call number could be scrapped for
users of mobile phones.ms of 'silent' calls are made by mistake
because callers accidentally press the emergency sequence of
buttons on mobiles kept in their pockets.

Even when the keypad is locked, most of these phones will connect
an emergency call to the operator.

Now BT wants to eliminate the problem and believes changing the
emergency number for mobiles could prevent most of the calls. One
source at the company said: 'Removing accidental calls would cut
costs and probably save lives too.'

BT, which handles most emergency calls, plans huge increases in the
charges it makes to other phone operators for handling their 999
messages.

Industry regulator Oftel has allowed BT to raise the amount it charges
by 20% to 58p for each call. The rise has been approved because of
the huge jump in the number of emergency calls BT handles. An Oftel
spokesman said: 'In 1997, BT had to process 20.7m such calls. By
2001, the figure had risen to 33m, with more than half coming from
mobile phones.'

Oftel said there had been no formal request to remove the 999
system, but industry sources said that silent calls were a huge
problem.

With more people carrying mobiles, there has been an increase in the
number of genuine emergency calls, but there have also been far
more calls made by mistake.

BT automatically filters calls where a string of nines is dialled, but an
operator must listen whenever someone keys in just three nines to
make sure the call has not been placed by someone who for some
reason is unable to speak.

A solution may come from an unlikely source - the European Union. In
what is the equivalent of asking motorists to drive on the right-hand
side of the road, Brussels wants British phone companies to adopt
their 112 emergency number instead of 999.

A BT source said: 'There are good reasons to change and the EU
would prefer it if we all had the same number. It is true that 112 is
less likely than 999 to be dialled by accident, but there are obvious
risks to switching over completely. The 999 emergency number is one
that has been drilled into people from childhood.'

Find this story at
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/timid60506?version=1

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