7 ms·

The incompetence of the Roman government once became so great that they lost the ability to provide basic public utilities like the keeping of time. Is this tha

The incompetence of the Roman government once became so great that they lost the ability to provide basic public utilities like the keeping of time. Is this that for us? How could 911 possibly go down? Crazy.

StudentStuff 8y ago
911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. There are thousands of (poorly run, uncoordinated) Public Safety Answering Points across the country, and most tend to contract with just the local incumbent telecom, ensuring any time there is an issue with said incumbent, every call to said PSAP fails. In the context of most of these PSAPs having already moved to VOIP, there isn't a coherent reason why these calls shouldn't go straight from the carrier originating the call to the PSAP, without middlemen like Centurylink standing by to misroute those calls.
- JadeNB 8y ago
  > 911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. I'm always interested in Chicago history, so I went looking, but couldn't find anything at, for example, https://www.nena.org/page/911overviewfacts https://www.nena.org/page/911overviewfacts . Do you know anywhere this history is written up?
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    Ah, I may have seen what you mean. According to https://www.countyofunion.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180009766&sec_id=180003667 https://www.countyofunion.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180009... : > 1976 Chicago claims to have had "the first enhanced 911 system of any major city" in the United States. … so I guess in > > 911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. you meant E911 (which, as the linked page points out, is a nebulously defined and variously implemented technology), not necessarily 911?
- ecp9 8y ago
  I mean if you want to get into the history of any technology you can point out how archaic and horrible it was initially. We're still in that phase with the internet, in 50 years people are going to read about things TCP/IP and Facebook and Comcast and won't be able to stop laughing hysterically at how bad and flimsy it all was.

StudentStuff 8y ago

911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. There are thousands of (poorly run, uncoordinated) Public Safety Answering Points across the country, and most tend to contract with just the local incumbent telecom, ensuring any time there is an issue with said incumbent, every call to said PSAP fails. In the context of most of these PSAPs having already moved to VOIP, there isn't a coherent reason why these calls shouldn't go straight from the carrier originating the call to the PSAP, without middlemen like Centurylink standing by to misroute those calls.

JadeNB 8y ago
> 911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. I'm always interested in Chicago history, so I went looking, but couldn't find anything at, for example, https://www.nena.org/page/911overviewfacts https://www.nena.org/page/911overviewfacts . Do you know anywhere this history is written up?
- JadeNB 8y ago
  Ah, I may have seen what you mean. According to https://www.countyofunion.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180009766&sec_id=180003667 https://www.countyofunion.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=180009... : > 1976 Chicago claims to have had "the first enhanced 911 system of any major city" in the United States. … so I guess in > > 911 is a creaky old system put in place by a Chicago mayor looking to score some points with the electorate. you meant E911 (which, as the linked page points out, is a nebulously defined and variously implemented technology), not necessarily 911?
ecp9 8y ago
I mean if you want to get into the history of any technology you can point out how archaic and horrible it was initially. We're still in that phase with the internet, in 50 years people are going to read about things TCP/IP and Facebook and Comcast and won't be able to stop laughing hysterically at how bad and flimsy it all was.