911 Telecommunication History

911 in emergency telecommunications has evolved in many ways this past decade. Because the number 911 was around since before most people, they believe the phone number has been around since the beginning. They fail to realize that the emergency phone number is considerably new and still has room for improvement.

Long before telephones even existed, crime and catastrophic events still happened. For the longest time a victim would just scream for help and surrounding people for react to the incident. Town watchmen would then sound off the town alarm which usually was church bells and town buildings bells. The alarm alerted the people of the town about the emergency. Fast forward to 1867 telephones were invented, and a new pave way was made for

The Federal Communications Commission began to collaborate with the phone company AT&T and started working on a national number for the United States. Finally, after many years a phone number was created. The three-digit number “911” was finally assembled, ditching the process of phones being answered telephone operators and being connected from there. Calls were would now transport directly to public safety agencies. On February 16, 1968 the first ever 911 call was made in Haleyville, Alabama by former senator Rankin Fite. In the week following, the at the time United States congress authorized the number as the national emergency number. Soon after the public announcement of the new number, many communities and states began implementing the three-digits into their own systems. The U.S. Congress quickly followed with passing a legislation making 911 the emergency telephone service. Not everyone jumped on this system following its launch though, eleven years following the release, only about 26 percent of the U.S. had the system in their departments. In 1999 is when majority of the country became covered with the emergency response number.

Today the system still remains intact. With the innovation of new technology, we are now able to contact police from anywhere with any phone, mobile or not. Though our system is not entirely perfect, it is still solid and gets the job done. We have reduced the time of actually getting ahold of a dispatcher from minutes to a matter of seconds. Our system still has room for improvement and the future has nothing but promises for a more diverse system to help the service become more efficient to those calling