NEW YORK - AT&T says that the explosive demand for emergency telephone service has forced it to tack on multiple numbers to its 9-1-1 emergency telephone number. "We just have too many communities in this country wanting 9-1-1, and there's no way to insure that all the calls get routed to the right dispatcher," said AT&T spokesperson Mohamed Skrinjar. "The same overload problem happened to our "800" numbers, so we now have "877" and "888." Starting in September, to access 9-1-1 a caller will first have to dial the area code, followed by 9-1-1, and then a twelve digit number. Eventually this twelve digit number will exceed twenty and perhaps thirty digits.
But, Skrinjar said, that's the easy part. "To guard against terrorists who would hijack the 9-1-1 system, that twelve digit number will need to be changed on a weekly basis. The tricky part is that AT&T will not publicize the constantly-changing twelve digit number." Then exactly how will callers be able to access the emergency telephone number? "All they need to do to get the current twelve digit number is dial 4-1-1 to access an operator," Skrinjar said. "The operator will then dial the complete emergency telephone number for you."
So, instead of dialing 9-1-1, all that a caller need do is dial 4-1-1? "Yes," said Skrinjar, "but there's a hell of a lot more going on behind the scenes than that."
