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Questioning the wisdom of permitting texting to E911 services [Telecom]

Background: on May 19, 2014, I posted an article to comp.dcom.telecom (C.D.T) citing this newspaper article:

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" This is very interesting. I can see where texting might be necessary " to remain quiet while observing a robbery in progress in a store or a " burglary in one's home. " " Both of my cellphones have texting capability but I haven't a clue how " to do it on either phone. I probably should learn how.

which was followed by some interesting comments in the thread by other C.D.T readers.

In today's ROAD SHOW column in the San Jose Mercury News there was this item:

You can also use BART's text-on-demand system, which will give you info only when you ask for it. Text "BART" and a command like "delay" to 878787 and they'll text you back.

Note I've been attempting to followup my comment above "I probably should learn how [to text]" since I occasionally receive freebie messages from AT&T Wireless and if/when texting capability is added to E911 it would be useful to know how to do it so I begin reading these:

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and
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and I'm still scratching my head.

How does one text "BART"? Is there a worldwide "phone book" in which there is only one "BART" entry? Every texting "guidebook" shows either short numbers (e.g., 123456) or actual cellphone numbers or alphabetics similar to "BART" which makes no sense at all to me. And what is the "878787" mentioned in the Road Show item since Googling "what is texting

878787" shows numerous abuses but no good examples in the first 2 pages of hits.

I have two phone numbers and I understand the phone system but this "texting" business sounds like pure hooey yet folks are texting all the time [even when they're driving which has been proven to be dangerous].

Googling "at&t wireless how to text" does not provide any useful tips or examples of anything similar to "how to text BART" which everyone seems to know except me. So color me redfaced and I cannot believe I'm the only person on the planet who doesn't how to text. :-)

Returning to the "Subject:", please note this short tidbit:

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where we see:

Unlike dedicated texting systems like the Simple Network Paging Protocol and Motorola's ReFLEX protocol, SMS message delivery is not guaranteed, and many implementations provide no mechanism through which a sender can determine whether an SMS message has been delivered in a timely manner. SMS messages are generally treated as lower-priority traffic than voice, and various studies have shown that around 1% to 5% of messages are lost entirely, even during normal operation conditions, and others may not be delivered until long after their relevance has passed. The use of SMS as an emergency notification service in particular has been starkly criticized.

That last sentence above controverts the efforts as reported in the AP article at the beginning of this posting.

So clearly the matter hasn't been resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

How you do feel about this issue? Given the great minds reading C.D.T surely someone must have some practical and reliable ideas or solutions.

Thad

Reply to
Thad Floryan
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+--------------- | You can also use BART's text-on-demand system, which will | give you info only when you ask for it. Text "BART" and a | command like "delay" to 878787 and they'll text you back. .. | ...and I'm still scratching my head. | How does one text "BART"? Is there a worldwide "phone book" in which | there is only one "BART" entry? Every texting "guidebook" shows either | short numbers (e.g., 123456) or actual cellphone numbers or alphabetics | similar to "BART" which makes no sense at all to me. And what is the | "878787" mentioned in the Road Show item ... +---------------

It seems like you might be overthinking it just a little bit. ;-}

The 878787 is just the (pseudo-)phone number you send the text message to; the content of that text should be "bart " [either "BART" or "bart"] where is one of the defined commands for the service, such as "delay". That is, text the message "bart delay" to the phone number 878787 and you'll get a list of current system delays (if any) sent back to you.

For more on available commands, text "bart help" to 878787, or see this page:

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-Rob

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ Rob Warnock 627 26th Avenue San Mateo, CA 94403
Reply to
Rob Warnock

Hi Rob,

You're correct; I was weary at 2am when I posted. :-)

Now THAT is what I don't understand: 878787 as a pseudo-phone number.

For normal voice cellphone usage, a full and correct phone number is required to route a call to its proper destination. I have no issue with placing BART's (or anyone else's) phone number in my phone's "phonebook" (aka "contact list").

So who, or what, is routing 878787 to BART? Would all carriers in the USA (or even worldwide) route 878787 to BART?

Thank you! Barry Margolin sent an email clarifying my earlier misunderstanding about the ROAD SHOW's snippet contacting BART and also a quick explanation how to actually text which really is not clear in either of my cellphone's user manuals.

That's good to know, thank you!

I try to persuade folks not to text me because it costs me. I wasn't concerned with the cost when I was working (I'm now retired) because I always programmed servers at all my client and employer sites to send a message to my cell phone when anomalies were automatically detected (e.g., water from a leaking HVAC, overtemp alert, power failures, and more) and I'd simply expense the cost of the alert to the client or employer.

This still leaves open the issue about using SMS to contact E911 services with this paragraph

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disparaging the texting-to-E911 efforts as reported here:

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Thad

Reply to
Thad Floryan

Perhaps this is a special case of very narrow interest, but I am in favor of the proposal for the following reason:

I spend some time in an area with marginal cellphone coverage. Despite the use of a yagi and a low-band cellphone service I can only obtain a voice connection roughly 40% of the time, depending on local meteorological conditions. Under these same conditions an SMS message will always punch through within 30-60 seconds. SMS-911 would extend the coverage area of the existing cellphone network for emergency communications for any customer.

As to the unreliabliity issue, I wish someone more knowledgable would respond. My expectation is that the SMS data connection is quite reliable within a given carrier's network. The public gateways between the various carriers may have congestion issues leading to dropped SMS messages if nobody is tending to the traffic engineering. Is this correct?

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