Will your cell phone reach 911?
You can't be sure. Our research produced some disturbing results.
consumerreports.org
One in three people who own a cell phone say they bought it
mainly for safety--to have if they need to call 911 from
the side of the road or a dark street at night. And at
least one-third of all 911 calls are now made on cell
phones--just under 57 million calls in 2001, according to
the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association
(CTIA), a trade group.
As large as that number is, it's not the total. Some
cellular calls to 911 never get through. The number of
failures can't be known; a call that goes nowhere can't be
tracked. Our research does give some dimension to the
problem, however.
When we surveyed 11,500 subscribers to ConsumerReports.org
last fall, 1,880 said they had tried to call 911 using a
cell phone in the previous year. Some 15 percent of them,
or 280 people, said they had trouble connecting; that
includes 4 percent who never got through at all.
For most of those, a weak signal, a bad connection, or some
other phone-system problem seemed to have caused the
trouble. Trouble for the remaining respondents apparently
involved the emergency system: excessive rings, unanswered
calls, or being left on hold.
Wireless 911 calls in California seem especially
problematic, according to our survey. There, nearly 12
percent of calls to 911 never succeeded; one-third of our
California respondents said they encountered some
difficulty getting through to 911.
When we went into the field, we found problems with the
system. With a significant number of the calls we made to
real 911 centers, the phones did not do all we believe they
could to make calls connect.
As anyone who has used a cell phone knows, dropped calls
and bad connections are a part of everyday life. "Consumers
know when they pick up a wireless phone they're making a
trade-off between mobility and service quality," says
Travis Larson, a CTIA spokesman.
But shouldn't 911 calls be different? After all, the
landline phone system has been especially designed to put
through essentially every 911 call. And the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) has a regulation designed
to be a kind of safety net for cellular (otherwise known as
wireless) 911 calls, to improve your chances of getting
through.
SYSTEM REALITIES
The wireless phone system in the U.S. often handles a call
to 911 just like any nonemergency call. Here's how:
The phones can be all-digital or, more typically, digital
with analog calling as a backup. Analog is the common
wireless language, compatible with any carrier that
provides such service. (Phones with analog and digital
modes are known as dual-band, tri-mode, or multinetwork.)
Most wireless phones in the U.S. use one of four
incompatible digital modes.
When your phone is in digital mode, it can work only with
your home carrier (the company you use for service) for any
call--including those to 911--unless the home carrier has a
roaming agreement with another carrier.
Phones that can work in both digital and analog modes give
you more options. Analog provides that safety net for
emergency calling. Indeed, the principal FCC regulation
governing wireless 911 recognizes the importance of the
analog mode.
The regulation, which took effect in 2000, says that
whenever a wireless phone dialing 911 in analog mode can't
get through via its home carrier, that phone must seek
another signal, even if it's from a competing carrier, to
quickly establish a voice connection.
The FCC concedes its rule is only a small step toward
improving 911 service. Multinetwork phones, which are
normally in a digital mode, aren't required to switch to
analog to make a 911 call. There are no regulations for
digital-only phones, such as the kind offered by T-Mobile
and Nextel.
TESTING THE SYSTEM
Who provides an analog safety net?
Only some major national wireless-service providers offer
an analog safety net as well as digital calling.
Company Digital format Analog backup
AT&T Wireless TDMA, GSM Yes
Cingular TDMA, GSM Yes
Nextel IDEN No
Sprint PCS CDMA Yes
T-Mobile GSM No
Verizon Wireless CDMA Yes
Digital-format abbreviations are defined in Key words.
Last summer, an engineer working for the Wireless Consumers
Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group, used our labs to
demonstrate that wireless phones dialing 911 in analog mode
and covered by the FCC regulation may still fail to
connect.
That led us to conduct our own real-world tests to find out
what would happen in places where a home carrier has a weak
signal but competing carriers have strong signals.
We ran two rounds of trials making 911 calls to active
emergency-communications centers. We had the full
cooperation of local officials in Steuben County, Ind., and
Sullivan County, N.Y., and were assured that our testing
did not interfere with response to real emergencies.
Both areas receive a heavy influx of travelers and
vacationers, people who are likely to be far from a home
calling area. Major highways cut through both counties.
Steuben County is well served by a local carrier that uses
the same digital system as AT&T Wireless; service from
Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS, however, is marginal. In
the area of Sullivan County where we ran our tests, the
reverse is true: Verizon and Sprint have strong signals,
but AT&T is marginal.
All the phones we used in the tests have analog and digital
capability. According to FCC registration data, only one of
the phones we used was made before the 911 calling
regulation took effect. The manufacturers certified that
the phones meet all applicable FCC rules.
In Steuben County, we made 14 test calls on 12 different
phones with accounts from Sprint and Verizon. In Sullivan
County, we made 7 test calls on 6 phones with accounts from
AT&T and Cingular. Overall, of the 18 phone-and-service
combinations tested, 9 calls failed to connect to 911. In
every instance, there was a strong signal from another
carrier the phones could have used.
In a separate test, some phones connected to 911 on a
strong analog signal from a competing carrier when they
couldn't find any home-carrier signal.
Our two field tests represent a small picture of a
situation that can change with time and location. But we
believe that the results illustrate a significant problem--
a phone's inability to switch from a too-weak home-
carrier's signal to a strong signal available from another
carrier.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE
The 911 system needs fixing. The FCC's 911 regulation is
out of date for today's wireless phones, which increasingly
depend on digital--not analog--technology. When the rule
was written, fewer than half of the wireless customers used
a dual-mode phone; that has now surpassed 87 percent.
The FCC's regulation also defies "general common sense,"
says Roger Hixson, technical issues director for the
National Emergency Number Association, the nonprofit
umbrella organization for U.S. emergency call centers.
Hixson explained that phones that can't connect in a
digital mode or don't automatically roll over to analog for
an emergency call "subvert the idea that any call dialed to
911 has to be handled by the wireless carrier and brought
into the call delivery network."
The FCC needs to impose higher standards for the wireless
911 system. A reasonable way to start could be to change
the current regulation to apply as well to multinetwork
phones dialing 911 in digital mode. If the call can't be
quickly completed through the home carrier, the phone
should seek another signal.
Manufacturers and carriers need to invest in safety. We
think carriers should make the existing 911 system work
more effectively, which may require some reprogramming of
the phones.
The FCC must ensure that digital phones are more
compatible. The FCC voted last fall to phase out its
requirement that some wireless providers offer an analog
backup signal. We think that was a mistake because the
agency did not also require companies to make their digital
technologies talk with one another. Simply allowing analog
to fade away removes the principal common wireless
language. In the end, you will have less assurance than you
do now that your phone will get through to 911.
The industry needs more diligent oversight. The FCC has the
industry on an honor system. The agency does no testing to
monitor compliance with its 911 rule, says Steven Dayhoff,
an electronics engineer at the FCC labs. Of wireless
companies and 911, he says, "We assume that they have the
software or firmware for call-handling that they're
supposed to have." He noted, however, "We have not tried it
out."
At a minimum, the FCC should run its own tests to see that
phones perform as they should--and as manufacturers have
certified--when dialing 911.
Last November the Wireless Consumers Alliance filed a
series of class-action suits in federal and state courts
against various wireless phone manufacturers and service
providers, maintaining that they knowingly sold phones that
did not comply with the FCC's regulations. The suits seek
injunctions against the sale of the phones, as well as
monetary damages. Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer
Reports, is not a party to those suits.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Do not dial 911 to test the system. It's unethical and, in
many areas, illegal.
Avoid digital-only phones or carriers if you want a cell
phone for emergencies. See the table above. Some phones
that use the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital
format can be forced into analog by the user. Check the
user's manual.
If you don't use your cell phone every day, make sure that
its battery stays charged.
While driving, leave the phone on and its antenna extended.
That may shorten the time needed to reach 911.
If you have trouble connecting to 911 from inside a car,
get out, if possible, and call from the side of the road;
that may help you get a better signal.
In an emergency, ignore a "no service" message on the
phone's display. Try the call anyway.
Tell the FCC what you think of the present wireless 911
system. To register a complaint or voice your opinion,
contact the agency at 888-225-5322.
For more information about wireless calling and advice on
how and where to complain about service, go to our advocacy
web site, www.consumersunion.org. |
