Millions of cell phone users in California are being connected more reliably to emergency services when they make 911 calls, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The number of emergency calls from wireless phones in California that were delayed or failed to go through has fallen from 42 percent, or 4.9 million calls in 2007, to 5 percent, or 470,000 calls so far this year. The drop has occurred even as the number of emergency calls from cell phones has continued to rise, reaching 17 million last year.
The announcement from the California Public Safety Communications Division represents a victory for the state’s public safety services, which have struggled to deal with the growing call volume from mobile devices.
When cell phones were relatively rare, all 911 cell phone calls were routed to the California Highway Patrol; as the phones became more common, call centers were overwhelmed. Callers were faced with long wait times, transferred calls and delays in response.
Several years ago the state started rerouting many 911 wireless calls, which now are twice as common as emergency calls from land lines. Now 60 percent of the wireless calls go directly to local dispatch centers.
The transfer of calls has also relieved pressure on the overwhelmed CHP call centers, which have seen reductions in wait time for callers, from delays of more than 40 seconds (with the worst waits taking 20 minutes or longer), to 10 seconds or less for 94 percent of calls received over the last three months.
