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chasfm11 wrote:

RoyGBiv wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:Perhaps you can request a visit to a police dispatch center and see how the process of locating an address from a non-hard wired phone works. Our daughter is a 911 dispatcher and her descriptions about the process suggest that it can take longer than you might imagine.

It would be very appreciated if you would pose the question to your daughter and post her reply here...

I have VoIP for both home and business, my VoIP providers have my e911 information and claim to have the proper (required by law) links to my 911 dispatcher. I've been tempted to test the system, but, too many downsides to doing that. What experience has she had with e911 provided addresses?

If her experience says "e911 works, but only if the end user provides a good address and keeps it updated", then I'll feel pretty good. If her experience says "e911 is hit or miss, depending on the carrier and the location", then I'll not feel so warm and fuzzy.

Thanks.!

I'll ask her and respond with what she says. Previously, she has said that the ability to find an address is dependent on the provider. Some cell companies must have better setups than others. She has not specifically talked about VOIP but in general about non-land line phones.

Cell phones also present a challenge in places like DFW (with SO many cities SO close together) of potentially routing you to the wrong city, potentially costing you additional precious time.

I could potentially get Keller, Roanoke, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, or Denton County from inside my neighborhood. If I'm on the road, it's even worse. You're in and out of cities so fast on the freeway they have no chance to respond to even an egregious act being reported.

There's multiple variables in play. WFAA has done a myriad of stories on DPD dispatch including instances of:
- never responding to a call
- taking hours (up to 24) to respond to a call
- having busy phones that don't get answered
- etc.

Another incident this summer showed an entire neighborhood calling 911 and getting busy signals as a home burned down. One neighbor ran to the fire station a block or so away and started ringing the doorbell / banging on the door and still couldn't get a response.

DPD dispatch is definitely broken. The department is (was at least) split into separate traffic and four separate patrol divisions - the patrol divisions only responded to 911 calls and still had terrible response times (overworked? understaffed? poor triage and logistics from dispatch?) A couple of years ago the department just quit enforcing traffic on several major freeways and told the county Sheriff's office that they could enforce if they wanted to.

I'm glad I live in Fort Worth for several hundred reasons, but that's not even my main point.

If you abdicate your primary self defense and security to somebody else, you're hoping that a lot of things go right. . . and invariably one of them won't.