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Cleaning the national number plan of 911 took a lot of work and time. Right off the top of my head the 513 NPA (Ohio-ish) has a 988 NXX so there's a thousand p

by VLM 7y ago

Cleaning the national number plan of 911 took a lot of work and time. Right off the top of my head the 513 NPA (Ohio-ish) has a 988 NXX so there's a thousand potential phone numbers that have to change. There's going to be a ton of incoming traffic from people trying to call a dominos pizza in ohio who manage to get themselves routed to the hotline because they dialed 988 as part of the number. Some people program some PBX dialplans such that pretty much any stream including the regex 911 goes to 911 (dial 9 for outside line and 911, dial 911 without a leading 9, etc) and they're going to try that with 988 with predictable results (try to call your buddy who used to be extension 9889 and you're mysteriously connected to a hotline). The international phone dialing country code for Bangladesh is 880, that country code will have to change because some fraction of PBX programmers and users are going to F it up (as usual) and route all "9 for outside line 880 for Bangladesh then 123456 for the lnum" calls to the hotline. The massive incoming call volume will require laws to reduce the massive volume involving expensive fines and fees. That'll scare people away from calling. Well, they say fake or repeatedly incorrectly routed calls will result in a $1000 fine, so if someone's feeling down, they're not going to be into a $1000 fine... In the end it seems like it would be ridiculously cheaper, simpler, more reliable, and safer to simply have people dial 911, and the 911 ops can read a sticker stuck on their phone with the transfer number on it. Overall the idea adds complication to a dangerous situation which is never advisable. Only someone very sarcastic could say, I know what stressed people need, is a larger more complicated decision tree when they urgently need help... Not exactly aerospace engineering going on here. We already have a "I need help" phone number, 911...

RKearney 7y ago
> Right off the top of my head the 513 NPA (Ohio-ish) has a 988 NXX so there's a thousand potential phone numbers that have to change. They can just require 10 digit dialing for that area code. It's already been required on may others. > Some people program some PBX dialplans such that pretty much any stream including the regex 911 goes to 911 (dial 9 for outside line and 911, dial 911 without a leading 9, etc) and they're going to try that with 988 with predictable results (try to call your buddy who used to be extension 9889 and you're mysteriously connected to a hotline). That would break so many things if they did that today. Numbers can contain "911" within them and have nothing to do with 911. If they've made it this long with a broken dial plan, adding another broken match for 988 won't change much as they're already used to not being able to dial thousands upon thousands of numbers. > The international phone dialing country code for Bangladesh is 880, that country code will have to change because some fraction of PBX programmers and users are going to F it up (as usual) and route all "9 for outside line 880 for Bangladesh then 123456 for the lnum" calls to the hotline. Generally you have to dial an international call prefix before the country code, so this is a non issue. Without it, the phone system won't know if you're trying to reach country code 44 for the UK, or area code 440, 441, 442, 443, or 445 in the US.
- VLM 7y ago
  Yes I agree completely with your calm and rational analysis. Technically completely correct. The problem is the whole point of the system is its for users who are not calm and rational. I've never seen a scenario in the real world where making a system more complicated helped users who were not calm and rational.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > Generally you have to dial an international call prefix before the country code, so this is a non issue. Without it, the phone system won't know if you're trying to reach country code 44 for the UK, or area code 440, 441, 442, 443, or 445 in the US. ...are you in the US? That isn't true at all. You start with the country code. You can't reach any of the area codes you mentioned by dialing a number starting with the area code, because you have to start with 1, the US country code. Outside the US, you can use the more unambiguous country code 001 to reach the US. (e.g. I had difficulty calling the US from China because normal American 11-digit numbers starting with 1 are processed by Chinese carriers as 11-digit Chinese cell phone numbers. But there, like here, there was no "international call prefix". You just start right off with the country code.)
  - RKearney 7y ago
    > You can't reach any of the area codes you mentioned by dialing a number starting with the area code, because you have to start with 1, the US country code. You absolutely can. 443, and 445 allow for 10 digit dialing. 442 requires a 1 prefix. https://nationalnanpa.com/enas/npasRequiring10DigitReport.do https://nationalnanpa.com/enas/npasRequiring10DigitReport.do In the USA you need to dial 011 (the exit code) before dialing a country code. You can't just pickup the phone and dial any countries country code and expect it to work. If you're on a phone system that supports it, you can dial +[country code] where the phone system will translate + into your countries exit code. > Outside the US, you can use the more unambiguous country code 001 to reach the US. (e.g. I had difficulty calling the US from China because normal American 11-digit numbers starting with 1 are processed by Chinese carriers as 11-digit Chinese cell phone numbers. But there, like here, there was no "international call prefix". You just start right off with the country code.) Only in countries where the exit code is 00. The Country Code for the USA is 1, so in a country where the exit code is 00 that would translate to 001. In Hong Kong, the exit code is 001, so if you wanted to reach the US you would dial 001 1 then the US area code and number.
mikeash 7y ago
911 doesn’t have the resources or training to deal with suicidal people. The purpose of 911 is to get first responders to your physical location. The purpose of suicide hotlines is to get help on the phone.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  The 911 dispatchers shouldn't be dealing with suicidal people, they should be forwarding calls from suicidal people to the correct place. I would hope they already do this. What happens if you call 911 and tell them you're suicidal today?
  - mikeash 7y ago
    I don’t know, but I’d expect them to send the police if it’s an emergency (you’re in imminent danger of going through with it) and to tell you to stop tying up the line and seek help yourself otherwise. This would be just like calling them for any other medical problem. If you’re in imminent danger they’ll send help. Otherwise they’ll tell you to get off the line. They won’t forward you to a doctor.
toast0 7y ago
(Agreeing with you), i don't see how they could have decided that clearing out one of the less used N11 codes was too hard, but clearing out a prefix across all area codes would be tenable.

by VLM 7y ago

RKearney 7y ago

> Right off the top of my head the 513 NPA (Ohio-ish) has a 988 NXX so there's a thousand potential phone numbers that have to change. They can just require 10 digit dialing for that area code. It's already been required on may others. > Some people program some PBX dialplans such that pretty much any stream including the regex 911 goes to 911 (dial 9 for outside line and 911, dial 911 without a leading 9, etc) and they're going to try that with 988 with predictable results (try to call your buddy who used to be extension 9889 and you're mysteriously connected to a hotline). That would break so many things if they did that today. Numbers can contain "911" within them and have nothing to do with 911. If they've made it this long with a broken dial plan, adding another broken match for 988 won't change much as they're already used to not being able to dial thousands upon thousands of numbers. > The international phone dialing country code for Bangladesh is 880, that country code will have to change because some fraction of PBX programmers and users are going to F it up (as usual) and route all "9 for outside line 880 for Bangladesh then 123456 for the lnum" calls to the hotline. Generally you have to dial an international call prefix before the country code, so this is a non issue. Without it, the phone system won't know if you're trying to reach country code 44 for the UK, or area code 440, 441, 442, 443, or 445 in the US.

VLM 7y ago
Yes I agree completely with your calm and rational analysis. Technically completely correct. The problem is the whole point of the system is its for users who are not calm and rational. I've never seen a scenario in the real world where making a system more complicated helped users who were not calm and rational.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> Generally you have to dial an international call prefix before the country code, so this is a non issue. Without it, the phone system won't know if you're trying to reach country code 44 for the UK, or area code 440, 441, 442, 443, or 445 in the US. ...are you in the US? That isn't true at all. You start with the country code. You can't reach any of the area codes you mentioned by dialing a number starting with the area code, because you have to start with 1, the US country code. Outside the US, you can use the more unambiguous country code 001 to reach the US. (e.g. I had difficulty calling the US from China because normal American 11-digit numbers starting with 1 are processed by Chinese carriers as 11-digit Chinese cell phone numbers. But there, like here, there was no "international call prefix". You just start right off with the country code.)
- RKearney 7y ago
  > You can't reach any of the area codes you mentioned by dialing a number starting with the area code, because you have to start with 1, the US country code. You absolutely can. 443, and 445 allow for 10 digit dialing. 442 requires a 1 prefix. https://nationalnanpa.com/enas/npasRequiring10DigitReport.do https://nationalnanpa.com/enas/npasRequiring10DigitReport.do In the USA you need to dial 011 (the exit code) before dialing a country code. You can't just pickup the phone and dial any countries country code and expect it to work. If you're on a phone system that supports it, you can dial +[country code] where the phone system will translate + into your countries exit code. > Outside the US, you can use the more unambiguous country code 001 to reach the US. (e.g. I had difficulty calling the US from China because normal American 11-digit numbers starting with 1 are processed by Chinese carriers as 11-digit Chinese cell phone numbers. But there, like here, there was no "international call prefix". You just start right off with the country code.) Only in countries where the exit code is 00. The Country Code for the USA is 1, so in a country where the exit code is 00 that would translate to 001. In Hong Kong, the exit code is 001, so if you wanted to reach the US you would dial 001 1 then the US area code and number.

mikeash 7y ago

911 doesn’t have the resources or training to deal with suicidal people. The purpose of 911 is to get first responders to your physical location. The purpose of suicide hotlines is to get help on the phone.

0xffff2 7y ago
The 911 dispatchers shouldn't be dealing with suicidal people, they should be forwarding calls from suicidal people to the correct place. I would hope they already do this. What happens if you call 911 and tell them you're suicidal today?
- mikeash 7y ago
  I don’t know, but I’d expect them to send the police if it’s an emergency (you’re in imminent danger of going through with it) and to tell you to stop tying up the line and seek help yourself otherwise. This would be just like calling them for any other medical problem. If you’re in imminent danger they’ll send help. Otherwise they’ll tell you to get off the line. They won’t forward you to a doctor.

toast0 7y ago

(Agreeing with you), i don't see how they could have decided that clearing out one of the less used N11 codes was too hard, but clearing out a prefix across all area codes would be tenable.