Does anyone know if you can dial 911 without having paid home phone service in B/CS? Doing a little internet sleuthing tells me this works in some areas and not in others.

I've been landline free for 10+ years, relying on Skype & cell, but having a young one in the house makes me think twice about not having reliable 911 service.

I asked the Sheriff's office about this when we moved to town a few years ago. There is a non-emergency line that you can call, that, at least at the time, actually went to the same people that the emergency line went to.

I think that's about as good as it gets. I'd be curious if you find a better solution.

robert

I have Windstream for internet and no 'landline' telephone plan.

I can dial 911 free of charge, and incoming calls are free. Other outgoing calls are $0.10/minute.

You can still call 911 from a regular phone that you plug in to the wall, even if you don't have phone service.

You can also call 911 from any cell phone, even if it doesn't have service to it - just keep it charged!

That's not always the case... I have DSL w/o voice service and if I plug in a phone, the second I pick it up it rings a recording saying my line isn't provisioned, etc... there's no chance to dial at all.

A few years ago it wasn't like this -- you wouldn't get the recording until after dialing a number, so presumably you could dial 911 (never tried; thankfully never needed to).

Hook up a generic phone. If you get a dial tone, it should be 9-1-1 capable.

Dialing 911 on a cell phone contacts emergency services just like a land line. I know in some areas cell calls are routed to different call centers than land line calls, so I guess that is what your question is about???

I only had a cell for a few years in C.S., and I had 911 service. I had to call them a few times because I lived in an area with a lot of car accidents. The operator just asked for the address and all seemed to work fine.

Like an above poster said, a cell phone doesn't even have to be on an active pay plan to be able to dial 911. By law, all cell phones have to be able to dial 911 so they only need to be kept charged.

Cell phones are handy but they are more fragile than people may realize. If your battery dies, or you drop your phone and it comes apart, or if you just plain misplace it – or if it's taken away from you, which sometimes happens in an attack - what other option do you have for calling anybody if no landline phone is available?

If the phone line is in order, and you have even a cheap phone plugged into the wall, your home phone may work even if other utilities are disconnected. They aren’t affected by cell phone towers being knocked over or overloaded in times of crisis.

It’s possible that a 911 call center can get a reasonably close fix on your location if you call from a cell phone. They do this be triangulating signal strength from various cell towers in your area. But this is inexact and may only give the police a rough area to canvass, and it relies upon translation into latitude and longitude and then to an area on an actual street map. In contrast to this, in almost every area of the country (including BCS), the moment a call goes through to 911 from a landline phone, the exact address of the location pops up on a screen, without you even having to say anything.

And yes - most phone companies will still allow emergency calls to 911 to go through EVEN IF there is no service contract in effect for that address. You should check with your local provider to be sure about this, but as a redundant means of calling for help, I really can’t see the downside to keeping a landline phone by your bed – especially if you don’t even need to pay for the service to get it.

If you are thinking far enough ahead to be concerned about the very real possibility of your cell phone being missing or failing you in a moment of crisis, then yes, you should look into the landline phone, if only for 911 calls. To not do so would be foolish.

We use Magic Jack and have 911 access there, but our land line, which isn't in use, doesn't have a dial tone. Can we still dial 911 from it without dial tone? I think I'd rather not test it.

If you are in Bryan or Brazos county, (not sure on College Station) you can have notes added to your home phone for any existing medical issues or other concerns responding personnel would need to know. When the call comes in, the extra info shows up on the screen immediately.

**This was about 15 years ago so I'm not sure how things work now you could contact the Brazos County 911 district to confirm.

EDIT
If you want to confirm if a phone is working you can dial 951. This is a loopback that will give you the number you are dialing from. I think this is only good if Verizon is the LEC.

[This message has been edited by qreply (edited 9/27/2010 8:14p).]

Most of the time, if you once had a traditional landline phone but it's no longer connected you still should be able to dial 911. If you'd like to test yours, call your local police department and ask if you can make a test call to 911 to see if it will work (might be a good idea to give them your address also to make sure you have the correct agency). It should not be a problem as long as you don't call on a busy Friday or Saturday night. Explain your concerns, ask if the operator has time to do this and it should not be a problem. If the operator balks at this, ask to talk with a supervisor.

The issue with using this route though is that when a call comes in from a disconnected landline it only shows a phone number, no address. A call has to be made to the local phone company to find out who the last subscriber was and the address. There is also no way the phone number can be called back.

As for having information (i.e. medical) that shows up on the actual 911 screen when you call 911, that may be true in some cities but not locally. If a resident has special conditions responders may need to know they can contact their local police agency and request information be added to the CAD (comptuer aided dispatch) system, which is tied to an actual address. Most departments won't include certain medical information due to HIPAA, just depends on each agencies guidelines. It is address specific though, not phone number specific.

For the most part yes, the non-emergency phone number to police will ring into the same office where the emergency call will go. As one would expect, the 911 calls are given priority over non-emergency calls so if you have a true emergency call 911 first.

911 calls made via cell phones will ring into the closest call center based on where the tower "grids" your phone to be. Most all the time they're routed correctly, especially around areas with good cell coverage. Some people think if they have a Houston number it will go to a Houston 911 call center. Not true.

If you ever have any questions call your local police agency. The number for College Station is 979-764-3600 and Bryan/Brazos County is 979-361-3888.

hmm, thanks for the good info. Sounds like I just need to find an old phone, hook it up and try.