Do you turn off "location access" in all the apps that don't need it?

of course it does.

It does, but not in the same way as POTS. For VOIP, the number is assigned to the subscriber's device (or "adapter"), whereas a POTS number is assigned to the wire itself, without regard to the telephone devices that may be attached to it. Land lines can't be moved, but VOIP devices can. Hence Jeff's problem: a 911 call on a VOIP "line" will be directed to the call center for the location on record with the VOIP provider, rather than to the one nearest the device's actual physical location.

I think all VOIP services support 911 in this fashion, but they may not support other special numbers. For example, Ooma doesn't know how to direct a call to 311, the municipal government information number.

That's one common problem. There are others, such as custom CID (CallerID) numbers, which if misconfigured will produce erronious location data. There are other problems, which I don't want to discuss in public.

How E911 works for a VoIP service provider:

More:

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 21:34:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote, in passing:

That's looking like more and more of a good idea. Smart phones can do such a heck of a lot all by themselves, with neither a cellular nor a wi-fi connection, it's almost a shame to hobble their functionality by wasting their time on mere cellular telephony. Perhaps I too should liberate my Moto Droid X2 from such telephony, and let one of my older, now retired VX3300 or VX5300 LG flip-phones take over that drudgery. Cheers, -- tlvp

Out of maybe 30 attempts at convincing friends and associates that it's a good idea, only one person has done the same thing. It works, but has its limitations. The problem is that the big advantage was being able to activate a smartphone without a data plan and thus dramatically reduce monthly charges. That worked well until about 2 years ago, when providers such as PagePlus finally woke up and allowed activation of no data smartphones. Today, it's a somewhat dubious propositioni considering the low cost for minimal data. At this time, the big advantage is that if I lose, forget, or trash my phone, it's a simple matter to just grab another CDMA phone out of the pile (no SIM needed), punch a few buttons (*228), and my account is now on the new phone. Worst case is a phone call to PagePlus support. I can't do that with a smartphone because they require a SIM card, which would not be available if I lost, forgot, or destroyed my smartphone.

Please note that Carlos talks about "emergency calls", while you talk about (E)911. 911 is a US (only? mainly?) thing. Other systems, for example the European one, are quite different.

Same here. I use my smartphone for anything *but* making/receiving phone calls [1]. Calls and texts are done with a 'dumb'/feature phone, which is small and has a battery that lasts 'forever'. Right too for the job and all that jazz.

That sounds suspiciously like the process I followed in about 2008/2009 where a major North/South state highway in Kansas abruptly ended on the map, but in reality it continued all the way to the Oklahoma border. They corrected the error in about 7 months, IIRC.

Well, it is something I read on the notes from some VoIp providers that I looked. Maybe things have changed, or they are different in the USA. One reason could be that VoIp was not considered reliable enough, it did not pass the testing - as compared to POTS, I suppose.

Somewhat related. You know whatsapp? In the conditions of use it forbids usage by emergency systems. It could be a way to send photos to the emergency service to better explain what is happening.

I heard of "emergency apps", though. They send your location to somewhere. I don't know the details.

Then it must be my tablet is single band.

I suggest you research NG911 (Next Generation 911).

Dave

Well, I had Google declare the track "restricted usage" which is what it is. They wouldn't eliminate it, simply because it *does* exist. And, they wouldn't list it as 'blocked', even though it has a set of locked gates.

So, restricted useage is as good as I'm gonna get.

They *said* they won't map anyone to use that road *unless* the location is

It kind of makes sense, so I didn't fight them, as they seemed to be wanting to do the right thing, within "their" rules of how they do things.

As I recall, it was all fixed and done in a couple of weeks.

That's how "I" would do it, but the GIS people expressly told me it was they who give the maps out. Of course, there is only one guy in the county GIS office, and he doesn't even answer his phone most of the time, so he may have been exaggerating his importance.

However, the police/sheriff *do* get their maps from the county GIS office, as they are the ones who clued me in to the error in the first place.

I have quite a few friends at both HQs in Mountainview and Cupertino, but over time, their ability to do special things for me has waned.

Either that, or I lost my power to do things for them in the San Jose HQ once I retired, which is probably half the story.

:)

Speaking of a "botched surveying job", not too far from me is a good friend on land which has adjacent land which had been unoccupied because the first few surveys didn't show the driveway to hit the road without crossing over a few feet of open space.

Then the owner of the landlocked property tried to strong arm the two neighbors to the side, for a prescriptive easement, but that failed (dunno why but I think because they bought the property cheap *knowing* it was landlocked and the judge said the people were willing to *sell* the rights to the guy but he didn't want to pay the price).

Finally, the owner figured out the *correct* plan, which was to come up with his own "special" survey which gave six feet to *each* of the neighbors and took that six feet away from the open space (moving the six feet to the back of the properties instead of to the front) and *all* the three neighbors were happy.

Apparently, the *last* survey registered wins, and since everyone won six feet, they were all happy not to have to commission a competing survey.

One can only presume the open space doesn't know about this surveyor's shenanigan, as the driveway was eventually built.

I'm in one of those 'boundary' areas myself, although I'm covered by more than one fire jurisdiction.

I think, from memory, the *land* is covered by calfire while the *home* is covered by the local town fire department.

Weird.

BTW, out here, *every* house must have its own fire hydrant on the property.

Do you have the same rules?

Heh heh ... Jeff ... I hike these hills a lot, and I've seen big blue plastic sheets with an X in white in the middle nailed to the ground.

I have photos of them, but I'd have to dig them out and I'm sure you've seen the same things all over.

SO that's what they must have been doing, which is what I would have thought, since there's no other reason for a blue and white X to be on the ground in the middle of nowhere.

They fixed the errors I told them about in roughly a week or two (as I recall). So maybe they're getting better ... or maybe it just depends on the "local volunteer" who makes the initial decision...

Or maybe it depends on the google employee who has to approve the change.

Or maybe it depends on the scope of the change.

Dunno... mine was no longer than two weeks as I recall, so, I consider that "fast enough".

There was some kind of negotiated agreement thrown together as part of the service area adjustments, which involved overlapping coverage. The problem was that the state did not want to pay for two fire departments arriving to fight a single fire. I think it was that either department can put out the fire, but not both. I suppose that would create a situation where they both race to the scene of the fire, but I haven't seen any of that. You might want to check on what overlapping coverage in your area really means.

I don't think so. In the People's Republic of Santa Cruz County, Cal Fire acts as the county fire department for the unincorporated areas only during the winter. The division is financial not service oriented. The problem is that areas that contribute the most tax revenue to the fire district, also seem to get second class service because of their remoteness. That's part of what inspired the Bonny Doon volunteer fire department to go independent. It would have been successful, expect that it was foiled by a politicized judge and local politics:

Dive in a little deeper into fire department politics and it will get far more weird.

My fire insurance has some requirement that I be near a hydrant or have some amount of water storage. I have what one might call a hydrant within 30ft, so I'm "safe". We used to share a 6,000(?) gallon redwood water tank on the hill above my house, but it burned down around 1980 and was not replaced.