Today’s mobile phones provide smart features and high-end specifications. They care capable of performing tasks similar to that of a personal computer. But we still need them for fulfilling the basic purpose of making phone calls, especially in case of emergencies. When someone is in an emergency situation, the leading-edge modern cell phone technology doesn’t serve the purpose as well as a land line.
The primary question that is asked when you dial 911 is “Where is your emergency”? Irrespective of the problem, this is considered to be the most crucial question in an emergency because the 911 folks need to know where they have to extend help. Cell phones aren’t useful in this context as their location isn’t traceable with ease. On the other hand, “Landlines” are incredible when it comes locating it’s origin. This is possible because the device is linked to a particular address. Sadly, the GPS feature on the cellphone doesn’t work as well indoors as it does outdoors which makes it difficult for the first responder to retrieve the address and location information.
In order to fix this overlooked yet critical problem, the Federal Communications Commission has put forward new regulations for wireless carriers but wireless providers are resisting this change. While sharing his experience, a 911 responder told a story of an 8-year-old boy who called him up and couldn’t read well and his parents were also illiterate. The boy’s parents had some medical emergency. The caretaker advised him to move outside and read the address of the house and it took him 10 minutes to do so. Although he managed to spell out the numbers regarding the address, such critical situations make providing the address verbally sometimes difficult. In the said situation, if the same call had come through a landline phone, identifying the location of that house would have been much easier as a pop up containing the exact address is displayed on the computer screens in the 911 department the moment a landline call is received.
Such cases may turn disastrous for the victims if help doesn’t reach them in time simply because the call did not go in through a landline phone. Therefore, no matter how tech savvy the world may have become, landlines still have their advantages. They serve some crucial purposes that cellphones cannot.
