911 SYSTEM OVERTAXED BY CELL PHONES.

Byline: Eric Moses Daily News Staff Writer

If you call 911 on your cellular telephone in Los Angeles County, there's a 1-in-14 chance you'll get a busy signal, simply because there are too few operators and too many callers.

The California Highway Patrol, responsible for answering all of these calls, says the explosion of cell phones is worsening a life-threatening situation.

``We're not keeping up,'' said Lynn Diebold, who supervises the CHP operators who handle 911 calls countywide.

As many as 140 emergency calls out of the 2,000 made every day don't get through because operators are too busy - often taking report after report of the same car crash or stray dog on the freeway, Diebold said.

That is about seven times higher than what state regulators say is acceptable for regular telephones.

``The facts of life are that when we have these large highway incidents, the system will be blocked for a period of time,'' Diebold said. ``It might be a very short period, three or four minutes or 10 minutes.''

What's more, 911 cell-phone calls can take longer to connect than a regular telephone call because they must pass through the CHP to the appropriate law enforcement or emergency services agency.

Although the CHP and state regulators have no record of anyone suffering harm from delays, one dispatcher who asked not to be named said he's had difficulty himself - and he predicts disaster.

On his way to work one day, the veteran employee dialed 911 to alert the CHP about an object in the freeway, a high-priority call for the agency. He said he was on hold for seven minutes before he hung up, figuring he'd report it in person.

``I'll tell you what, if I had a life-threatening emergency I would not dial 911 on a cell phone. I would keep memorized or program in the regular number to my local police department,'' the employee said.

Boosting the number of operators at the CHP's dispatch center has proven to be difficult. The dispatchers are employed by the state and must be added through the budget process. Recent requests for more operators have been filled slowly, Diebold said.

``The state process is a lot slower than the current pace of wireless technology,'' Diebold said.

However, lawmakers and the cell-phone industry have proposed a law they say will make connecting 911 calls more certain and the information more useful. Sponsored by the Cellular Carriers Association of California and backed by the CHP and other public safety agencies, the bill would:

Ensure that emergency calls made outside of freeways are routed directly to the nearest public safety dispatch center, not necessarily the CHP. New technology would change that.

``The cell site has enough intelligence in it so that it can feed the calls to the Glendale Police Department or Pasadena Fire Department,'' said Melissa May, a spokeswoman for Irvine-based Airtouch Cellular.

Provide the police or emergency services operator with the approximate location of the caller and the phone number.

Response time

Cell-phone calls to 911 are not directed immediately to the law enforcement or emergency services agencies that can help you. Calls go to CHP operators who then must determine whether their officers should respond, or the Los Angeles Police Department, Fire Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, or any of the law enforcement and emergency services agencies.

All that takes time, and in emergencies response time is critical.

By contrast, 911 calls from telephones go straight to police and fire dispatch centers in the community where the calls were made.

At one time, this system for routing cell-phone calls made sense. The CHP was chosen by the Legislature in 1991 to take all cellular phone calls because nearly all dealt with freeway incidents. But now that people carry the mobile phones wherever they go, about 30 percent of the Los Angeles calls - or 199,000 - have nothing to do with the highway.

The bill, AB 909, co-authored by Assembly members Helen Thomson, D-Vacaville, and George Runner, R-Lancaster, is stalled in a Senate committee and faces stiff election-year opposition from trial lawyers and a wireless phone users group.

The state Public Utilities Commission requires land-line companies to connect at least 99 out of 100 calls, including those to 911.

According to a study conducted by a group that opposes the bill, between 12 and 16 cellular telephone calls to the 911 operator fail to get through. Sometimes callers get busy signals or are out of coverage areas, or some portable telephones are not powerful enough.

Caller I.D. test

Unlike calls made from regular phones, the phone number and location of the caller do not show up on computer screens at the CHP dispatch center. As part of the plan to improve the wireless 911 service, the state and the cellular industry will test a caller identification and location system in the San Gabriel Valley this year.

The program could begin within the next month and would last six months, to give officials an idea of how well it works and how much it costs, said Leah Senitte, who heads the state's emergency telephone service system.

Within three years, the industry, under orders from the Federal Communications Commission, must be able to transmit the location of all 911 callers to within a 125-yard radius 67 percent of the time.

That's important, Senitte said, because ``wireless callers don't realize, oftentimes, where they are when they make the call.''

WHEN TO CALL 911

Call the emergency line only to report a:

- traffic accident, disabled vehicle or debris blocking the roadway

- reckless driver or motorist in distress

- medical emergency

- vehicle, structure or brush fire

- crime in progress.

Don't call if:

- emergency vehicles are on the scene of an accident or medical emergency.

- a cat is stuck in a tree

- you want to test the phone

- you want the weather report, road conditions, directions, phone numbers, theater and movie times.

Three important tips:

Make sure you dial 911 - without a 1 preceding it

Keep your local police and fire department numbers stored in automatic dial.

Use freeway call boxes, which are spaced about a quarter-mile apart in metropolitan areas, if your vehicle is on the shoulder and it's not an emergency. The advantage of using a call box is that they provide dispatchers with your exact location, whereas mobile phones do not.

Source: the Cellular 911 Education Task Force, 911 Statewide Program and the Cellular Association of California.

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