Yeah,
but ya know, it could also have been bad. I mean what if I had heard her panting
and moaning but it wasnt her hubby?
LOL! That's funny.
David L.
Ben Franklin: "Only
a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt, they have
more need of masters."
Oh
and forgot to add, sometimes quite embarassing for her. Such as the time she
was ummmmm being intimate with her hubby in the backseat of their car one
night and my number got dialed and I heard both of their pants and moans,
LOL.
I've gotten quite a few butt calls
from a friend of mine. She never even realizes she has done it. Most of
the time I call her back within a few minutes b/c she cant get a great
signal in her purse so her phone eventually lturns itself off. I make fun
of her for it most of the time, but it is annoying
Butt
calls: Let's put an end to 'em |
![]() David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003 |
|
Have you ever picked up your
telephone only to hear noise on the other end? Or maybe you heard bits
of conversation or singing over some static?
IF YOU WERE
LUCKY, you recognized the voice of someone you knew. That's when you
realized what had happened: Your friend had accidentally pressed the
redial or speed-dial button on their cellular phone, which then placed a
call to you.
Maybe the phone bumped up against something in a
purse or briefcase, or rubbed up against a seat belt. Or maybe the phone
fell on the floor. Maybe the person just sat on their phone--which
explains why some industry insiders call inadvertent dialing "butt
calls."
Often the phone owner doesn't realize what's
happening, and the accidental call keeps being made over and over again.
Trying to get the accidental caller's attention by shouting or pressing
one of your touch-tone keys doesn't work--I know, I've tried. All you
can do is hang up and hope you weren't ignoring something
important--like a friend who, for some reason or another, needed help
but couldn't speak.
That's where a funny story turns serious.
It turns out that a huge number of these
accidental calls are placed to local emergency service centers. Why?
Because many phones are factory-programmed with 911 as a speed-dial
number. Even when they aren't, many well-meaning users make 911 a speed
key on their own. Some phones even have special buttons for emergency
calls. Press any of these accidentally, and a call will go out for help
that you really don't need.
Larry Hatch, who works for the public safety
communications agency serving Washington County, Oregon (suburban
Portland), collected some of these inadvertent emergency calls on his Web site. It's easy to laugh at some of these,
especially the one of a toilet flushing.
But then you have to remember that these calls
take up the time of people whose job it is to handle real emergencies.
The call-taker at your community's public safety answering point doesn't
know whether you need help or not. So he or she must listen and try to
figure out whether the call is a real emergency or not. Many times it's
obviously an accidental call. But other times the dispatcher can't be
sure and has to sit there listening for ten minutes or more, just to
make sure.
How big a problem is this? Hatch estimates that 20
to 25 percent of 19,000 monthly calls to his agency, which answers all
911 calls in Washington County, are accidental; estimates for other
jurisdictions range up to 30 percent.
Hatch budgets about $8 million annually to answer
those calls. Do the math on how much those calls cost taxpayers in just
that one Oregon county, then extend it out nationally, and we could be
spending upwards of a billion dollars a year just to answer accidental
calls to 911.
AND THEN I WONDER about the people who
really need emergency help but can't get it. What if you call 911 on
purpose and then have to wait several minutes while a 911 operator tries
to figure out whether or not a butt call is a real emergency or not? I'm
not saying this happens every day, but with such high call volumes, bad
things are bound to happen eventually.
Then there's a more hypothetical--but
frightening--danger: Currently, when a 911 call comes in but then hangs
up, it's fairly common practice nationwide for the dispatcher to call
the number back. If he or she gets a suspicious response, or none at
all, police are sent to investigate.
Dispatchers can send officers to wire-line hang-up
calls because their systems can pinpoint where the call originated.
Similar capabilities are now being added to wireless 911 systems around
the country, enabling the dispatch console to display a cellular
caller's geographic location.
But what happens when a quarter of those calls are
bogus? Even if you knew the exact location of all those accidentally
dialed handsets, there aren't enough police officers to check them all
out.
Now that you know the scope of the problem, here's
what you can do to help:
- Unprogram any emergency speed dials on your cellular telephone.
These are open "one-key" speed dials, where pressing and holding a
single number key will place the call. Commonly, 911 is assigned to
the '9' key.
Learn to lock your cellular telephone keypad when you're not
actually using it. You will still be able to receive calls, but you
won't accidentally place calls, to 911 or anybody else.
Some phones have a special "911 mode," which defeats butt calls by
requiring an additional key to be pressed before completing a 911
call. If your phone has this feature, use it.
Owners of flip phones or any device with a protected keyboard are
already butt call-free, since there's no way to press the dialing keys
when the phone is closed. Just remember to always close the phone when
you're not using it. IN THE LONG TERM, it's up to
handset manufacturers to make it more difficult to accidentally place
calls. AT&T Wireless, for example, began working with its handset
maker three years ago to remove 911 from pre-programmed speed dials. Yet
older phones, and handsets from other vendors, still have the problem,
and that will take time to fix. Until it is, we have to do something
about it ourselves.
The whole issue of accidental cell calls sounds
kind of silly, especially when you call them butt calls. But to your
police, fire, and EMS agencies, they get in the way of helping people in
real need. And, of course, the money spent answering these calls could
be put to much better use.
So do me a favor: Share this column with as many
cell phone-wielding friends as possible. Make a hard copy and post it on
your company's bulletin board. Link to this page from your Web site. I'm
adding a link to my e-mail signature.
The bottom line is simple: Let's put an end to
butt calls.
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