[CII] terms and conditions

[John Osmon]

On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 11:00:35AM -0600, Paul Schmehl wrote:
[...] 
> So...no need for 911 then?

In actuality -- no.  No need for 911 as such.

911 (and other equivalents) are just "shortcuts" across another
infrastructure.  The end application is a voice channel into
a centralized dispatch center.

In my hometown, there are several numbers to call that get you
to the same dispatch center.  911 is just one that is easy
to recall.  The dispatch center has redundancy/resilancy on
the telephony infrastructure -- so I'm reasonably assured
that I can get and "open channel" to the dispath center if/when
I need to do so.

It's likely that I'm rare -- a citizen that is willing to ensure that
they know how to get a hold of the dispatch center by dialing something
other than '911'.

Is 911 critical?  No, not in my personal view.  It's a helpful layer,
but in a genuine emergency, I can function fine without it.