Recollections of
The First E911 Systems
[In response to our e-mail asking him about the origin
of E911, former Bell software programmer Bill Milam sent us the following
recollections on the history of the first systems.]
Maybe it depends on what you call E911. Way back then they still were
not sure what the "E" stood for. Maybe it was "Enhanced"
or "Expanded" or "Emergency." I have seen official documentation
that referred to it as both "Enhanced" and "Expanded."
I'm glad we finally got that settled!
Another question is what constitutes Enhanced 9-1-1. Does a system with
only ANI and Selective Routing qualify as an E9-1-1 system? (Actually, I
would think that it does.)
Remember back then it was basically all AT&T, before the break-up.
The AT&T break-up occurred sometime around 1983. The developers in AT&T
were located near Chicago, in Lyle, Illinois.
I too had heard of something in Chicago [being the first E911 system],
but I am pretty sure it was not a full-featured system. It's likely that
there may have been some kind of developmental test there in Chicago, but
I don't have any knowledge of that. From my experience I would expect that
system would have been similar to the Dade County, Florida system, which
had only ANI and Selective Routing.
The first of my involvement with Enhanced 9-1-1 was with the Dade County,
Florida system, which was ANI and Selective Routing only. Dade was classified
as the AT&T "first application" and the same type application
in Sacramento, California was the AT&T "trial site." But
there was a race to see which one would actually go in first. I'm not sure
who won that race. Neither of these systems had ALI or Selective Transfer.
I started working on the Dade system in 1978, and we cut live in January,
1979. After that I tried to catch up on my sleep.
Over the ensuing years of my service in Southern Bell (and BellSouth),
the Dade County system was considered a "non-standard" system,
because the database maintenance operations (which created Recent Change
data for the central offices) was not done with the other systems using
the later developed AT&T software. The Dade County system was converted
to a "standard" system in 1985. I needed a lot of sleep after
that was completed also.
Now going back to the implementations, the year after Dade County was
cut live, Orange County, Florida was cut live. We worked on the software
and conversion through a good part of 1979, and cut Orange County live
in January, 1980. Orange County was considered the AT&T "trial
site" for the full-featured E9-1-1, while a system in St. Louis, Missouri
was considered the AT&T "first application" for full-featured
E9-1-1. Again there was a race to see who would really be the first system
to cut live. I believe Orange County, Florida was the winner. As far as
I know, Orange County, Florida was the first system to cut live which was
full-featured, meaning the system had ANI, ALI, Selective Routing, and Selective
Transfer.
One interesting piece of history is that the well-known 232-character
ALI database record started out as a 229-character record. It seems that
in the beginning no one felt like it was very important to have the area
code in the record. That thought was quickly corrected in 1979. This little-known
fact supports my theory that any earlier Chicago system which might have
existed would have been similar to the Dade County, Florida system.
Another interesting note in the history of E9-1-1 is that the first president
of NENA, Roger Richardson, was also with Orange County, Florida during that
time of implementation. I am not sure, but I thought he was the Communications
Officer there, with responsibilities over the dispatch operations.
More Details
When I said that I had seen documentation referring to the "E"
as "Enhanced" and "Expanded," that was in the AT&T
/ Bell Labs documentation.
NOW TO THE QUESTION OF "WHICH WAS THE FIRST?"
With regard to what is the first E911 system, I later distinctly
remembered that the system implemented in Dade County (ANI and Selective
Routing) was referred to in 1978 as "Enhanced 911."
The systems put in after that may have received more press because they
were "full-featured" and because they were "standard"
systems. Of course, not all of those that came later would have necessarily
been "full-featured." Some of them may not have purchased Selective
Transfer feature. I think the way they were priced though, most of the maintenance
cost was put into the pricing of the ALI portion, so the other parts were
cheaper add-ons. Sometimes it might have been said that an Enhanced system
was one that had one or more of the four features of Enhanced 911 (ANI,
ALI, Selective Routing, Selective Transfer). That would not be absolutely
accurate because before we had E911, we had Basic 911, and some Basic 911
systems had ANI.
Of course, Basic 911 is 911 with direct routing from the central office
to the PSAP (no Selective Routing). Every 911 call made in a particular
central office went to one PSAP. And before we had E911, we were selling
"Basic 911 with ANI." So the ANI feature alone does an E911 system
make.
So therefore, the FIRST E911 system was either Dade County, Alameda County,
or whatever might have been in Chicago before either of those two. The thing
that really made it enhanced was the database maintenance. With the introduction
of the first E911 system we were for the first time required to do database
conversion and update activity from the telephone customer record system
(CRS)(or customer record information system (CRIS)). This database maintenance
processing is what created the "recent change" records (RC records)
for the tandem central office for Selective Routing. Later this database
was expanded to provide the information for the ALI feature (including the
English Language Translations (ELTs)), and also the Selective Transfer feature.
With the advert of the full-featured systems, AT&T created the database
maintenance software for all three of these features (ALI, Selective Routing,
Selective Transfer). The local telephone company only had to develop the
software for the source data (Customer Record System to the ALI 232-character
records--for conversion and update activity).
Before the full-featured systems were developed by AT&T, the local
telephone companies were left to their own devices to develop and maintain
a software system which would generate the RC records for the tandem central
office. Hence, the earlier systems became "non-standard," and
the subsequent systems were the "standard" systems.
Essentially, the requirement for a database maintenance system is the
demarcation of the beginning of "Enhanced 911."
Bill Milam | 