OT: Emergency contacts

On or around Tue, 12 Jul 2005 11:29:34 +0100, "Lee_D" enlightened us thusly:

yebbut, what if you have an Ice-supplier, or a car radio specialist?

I can't help thinking the boring old "Emergency" might be better than yet another possibly missleading trendy acronym. To me ICE will always be In-Circuit Emulator....

Richard

the first number in my phone labeled "!home", is fairly obviously the one to call in such circumstances.

Regards. Mark.

I'm with Austin "In Car Entertainment". There are other problems as well, take this scenario. You lose or have your phone stolen. New "owner" looks for your ICE details, makes a call, gets your NOK out of the house whilst they have a rummage. How do they get your address from just a number and name, plenty of legit places on the 'net, always assuming that your phone doesn't also store a full address or even your NOK tell them to confirm their identy before the "bad news" is passed.

Apart from that security aspect just a hoax call from a "friend" wouldn't be nice.

ICE

To me it will always be what you put in G&T to make it drinkable. Well, more drinkable then. Or drink moreable. Summat.

Dave

And this is the flaw...

Although the idea per-se isn't likely to cause any harm, there are a few issues and concerns I have had since first seeing this 'idea'.

Firstly, in the event of a 'disaster' such as happened in London the mobile telephone network is shut down. It's also highly likely that a mobile telephone will be broken or blown away from the owner.

More important, IMO, is to encourage people to have some common sense and return to the 'old system' of carrying some form of ID which also gives NOK and any medical information; (allergies, contra-indications etc.), which will be of immediate help.

Still, the idea won't 'hurt', apart obviously from Vodafone trying to grab the "aren't we nice" high-ground and of course "Americanisation" (how long before the BBCs "Casualty" program has a line with the crew in the ambulance saying "I've found an ICE number Charlie".. Cynical!

I've always thought that having 'home' or either 'mum' or 'dad' in my phone would be sufficient, and hoped that anybody who was trying to use my phone to contact someone in an emergency would look there first.

Last time i found a mobile phone, we rang 'dad' to reunite it with its owner.

But how does your Dad know?... I know Dads are clever but I think your exagerating now......

;0)

Lee D

In article , MVP writes

If you live alone (which increasing numbers of us do), then "home" might not be very successful.

Adrian

What are they too thick to read the printed card in my wallet ?

Like an organ donor card, or a MedicAid necklace.

Many phones won't accept the same number being entered more than once in the database. There is a fudge for this which is to add an extra '0' to one of the entries, which will be ignored by the network.

I think there may also be privacy implications which may prevent emergency services staff from searching through individuals mobile phone databases. I guess that the Ambulance service promoting the idea has checked the legal implications, but even so.

-- Pete

If I lived alone why the f*ck would I have my home number in my phone? do you think I'd call it often? lol

Regards. Mark.

You could always call yourself to see if you were in...

I'm actually thinking seriously about dumping my home landline. I used it three times between Jan and end of June - the only incoming calls being from either my, or Charlottes mum (oh, and BT trying to save me money on my calls, obviously).

Trouble with this is it is an imposition to be asked to phone a cellphone and the home phone is often linked with access to an isp via adsl or dial up.

AJH

I can see why people would want to do that but do think about all the implications.

A land line will work when the power goes off. Only some cell sites have battery back up those that do only have a few hours uptime. All telephone exchanges have *big* batteries and even quite small ones have generators as well. When the storm that flooded Carlisle came through of the 4 networks only 1 managed a short outage of a few hours (just the duration of the power outage at the transmitter) O2 was off for >48hrs, Voda for about 36... As storms go this one wasn't particulary nasty, it just rained *a lot*. Caught out quite a few locals who have mobiles only.

You don't need to have a means of recharging batteries at your end, not easy without mains power. Remember that your phones multiday standby time falls dramatically if you actual use it to make a call and when are you likely to want make a call... Provision can be made for alternative power sources, if it is thought about.

Mobile systems have a habit of getting overloaded rather quickly when even small amounts of shit start flying about. Overload didn't happen here but it did in Carlisle.

Just to qualify this a little... I have a number of other landlines in the building as part is converted into offices. It's the 'home' line which simply isn't necessary and may well go. I'd not have a television either if it were up to me - but it isn't, so I do... :-(

In article , MVP writes

Useful when friends/relatives are staying and you want to let them know you are on your way back ("get the kettle on"), also handy for testing the phone line when you've been adding in extensions etc.

Adrian

Not all of us can remember our home phone number too! so putting it in the mobile is useful

I only have one to use for broadband. Unfortunately you still have to pay for the voice calls even if you dont want it. My home phone is usually unplugged/on silent or ignored.

so Adrian Simpson was, like...

I suppose you could use the reverse of the "lost mobile" trick. If you were on your way home after a night on the pop and couldn't find your house, you could phone your home number and listen for which house started ringing.

Just a thort.