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This story was printed from Anchordesk,
located at http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/.
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Butt calls: Let's put an end to 'em
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By David Coursey: Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
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Wednesday, October 8, 2003
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Have you ever picked up your telephone only to hear noise on the other end?
Or maybe you heard bits of conversation or singing over some static?
IF YOU WERE LUCKY, you recognized the voice of
someone you knew. That's when you realized what had happened: Your friend had accidentally
pressed the redial or speed-dial button on their cellular phone, which then placed a call to
you.
Maybe the phone bumped up against something in a purse or briefcase, or
rubbed up against a seat belt. Or maybe the phone fell on the floor. Maybe the person just sat
on their phone--which explains why some industry insiders call inadvertent dialing "butt
calls."
Often the phone owner doesn't realize what's happening, and the
accidental call keeps being made over and over again. Trying to get the accidental caller's
attention by shouting or pressing one of your touch-tone keys doesn't work--I know, I've tried.
All you can do is hang up and hope you weren't ignoring something important--like a friend who,
for some reason or another, needed help but couldn't speak.
That's where a funny story turns serious.
It turns out that a huge number of these accidental calls are placed to
local emergency service centers. Why? Because many phones are factory-programmed with 911 as a
speed-dial number. Even when they aren't, many well-meaning users make 911 a speed key on their
own. Some phones even have special buttons for emergency calls. Press any of these
accidentally, and a call will go out for help that you really don't need.
Larry Hatch, who works for the public safety communications agency
serving Washington County, Oregon (suburban Portland), collected some of these inadvertent
emergency calls on his Web site. It's easy to laugh at some of these, especially the one of a toilet
flushing.
But then you have to remember that these calls take up the time of
people whose job it is to handle real emergencies. The call-taker at your community's public
safety answering point doesn't know whether you need help or not. So he or she must listen and
try to figure out whether the call is a real emergency or not. Many times it's obviously an
accidental call. But other times the dispatcher can't be sure and has to sit there listening
for ten minutes or more, just to make sure.
How big a problem is this? Hatch estimates that 20 to 25 percent of
19,000 monthly calls to his agency, which answers all 911 calls in Washington County, are
accidental; estimates for other jurisdictions range up to 30 percent.
Hatch budgets about $8 million annually to answer those calls. Do the
math on how much those calls cost taxpayers in just that one Oregon county, then extend it out
nationally, and we could be spending upwards of a billion dollars a year just to answer
accidental calls to 911.
AND THEN I WONDER about the people who really need emergency
help but can't get it. What if you call 911 on purpose and then have to wait several minutes
while a 911 operator tries to figure out whether or not a butt call is a real emergency or not?
I'm not saying this happens every day, but with such high call volumes, bad things are bound to
happen eventually.
Then there's a more hypothetical--but frightening--danger: Currently,
when a 911 call comes in but then hangs up, it's fairly common practice nationwide for the
dispatcher to call the number back. If he or she gets a suspicious response, or none at all,
police are sent to investigate.
Dispatchers can send officers to wire-line hang-up calls because their
systems can pinpoint where the call originated. Similar capabilities are now being added to
wireless 911 systems around the country, enabling the dispatch console to display a cellular
caller's geographic location.
But what happens when a quarter of those calls are bogus? Even if you
knew the exact location of all those accidentally dialed handsets, there aren't enough police
officers to check them all out.
Now that you know the scope of the problem, here's what you can do to
help:
- Unprogram any emergency speed dials on your cellular telephone. These are open "one-key"
speed dials, where pressing and holding a single number key will place the call. Commonly,
911 is assigned to the '9' key.
- Learn to lock your cellular telephone keypad when you're not actually using it. You will
still be able to receive calls, but you won't accidentally place calls, to 911 or anybody
else.
- Some phones have a special "911 mode," which defeats butt calls by requiring an
additional key to be pressed before completing a 911 call. If your phone has this feature,
use it.
- Owners of flip phones or any device with a protected keyboard are already butt call-free,
since there's no way to press the dialing keys when the phone is closed. Just remember to
always close the phone when you're not using it.
IN THE LONG TERM, it's up to handset manufacturers to make it more difficult to
accidentally place calls. AT&T Wireless, for example, began working with its handset maker
three years ago to remove 911 from pre-programmed speed dials. Yet older phones, and handsets
from other vendors, still have the problem, and that will take time to fix. Until it is, we
have to do something about it ourselves.
The whole issue of accidental cell calls sounds kind of silly,
especially when you call them butt calls. But to your police, fire, and EMS agencies, they get
in the way of helping people in real need. And, of course, the money spent answering these
calls could be put to much better use.
So do me a favor: Share this column with as many cell phone-wielding
friends as possible. Make a hard copy and post it on your company's bulletin board. Link to
this page from your Web site. I'm adding a link to my e-mail signature.
The bottom line is simple: Let's put an end to butt calls.
What do you think? Do you think butt calls are serious? Do you
have 911 on speed dial? TalkBack to me below!
