The UK Office of Telecommunications watchdog is recommending that emergency 999 telephone calls should be routed through a dedicated call agency, rather than by public phone operators. Oftel says the benefits of the system would be that the emergency services would receive all 999 calls from a single source, and specialised staff. Oftel is asking for comments on the proposal from interested bodies and British Telecommunications Plc has already signalled its support for the scheme. In the US several of the regional Baby Bells have handed over emergency service routing to Rockwell International Inc, which provides an enhanced service adding dedicated digital switches to the network and combining databases with the routing. Rockwell says the advantages of the service includes the geographical matching of the caller’s location with the nearest appropriate emergency service, rather than matching by telephone numbers, as is the case with standard emergency calls. The Rockwell system also enables the operator to pass on information about the caller to the emergency service, such as whether the call is from a payphone. Adding a dedicated switch also means that accounting can be separated from the normal network. In the US, the Rockwell service is often funded by local government, although Oftel says the cost of providing the emergency telephone services in Britain is likely to remain with the public operators. Oftel says its objective is to improve the service through centralisation, the alternative is to have various telecom operators providing services. Liberalisation could lead to several operators offering services. The working party set up to look into changes is to give a final report in the autumn.
