Tracing calls

[mengcfs]

Hi all,
Had an interesting call on the ALERTS system last night. A call had rang in, reverse charges to our local number. It was very hard to hear or even talk to the caller as the recored voice of the Telstra lady asking us if we wanted to accept the charges was repeating herself. Amongst that the beeps of when a call taker entered the call. To us it sounded like someone was in real trouble. I don't think they wanted the fire service but that's who they rang. The Telstra lady (a real one this time) came on and said the caller had been disconnected and they had tried ringing twice before.
With the ERS7 system our Brigade used to trace calls (heaps of malicious ones) but these days with the ALERTS the trace would only go back to the telebridge. Maybe we have to put the phone at the station that rings first on the trace to get the original number it came from.
Do other Brigades trace calls - Any thoughts.
Adam

[Wagon 1]

No ,you can trace it with CLI (Caller Line Identification) , or try Telstra 000 they are the one's that put it through to the Alerts system when someone rings 000, you may need to go through SOC or your Regional Duty Officer, I have done it before after getting repeated hoax calls on the ALERTS, and after getting pestered by Indian Call Centre's!!The only time they can't do it it when someone rings ALERTS direct, SAMFS can't help you either, its only if 000 is rung.

[mengcfs]

That's the problem, 70% of our calls are direct to our local number.
Adam

[Wagon 1]

Hmmm, might be something to bring up through the system to your region, perhaps to the communications commitee.

[oz fire]

What a great justification for only advertising 000.

All calls can be traced with CLI (Call Line Identification) being stored in Adelaide should there be a need to find out the origin of the call (although CLI isn't always accurate as it goes on the billing address of the caller, so not necessairly the location of the phone)

000 - the way to go, and as 000 calls are answered in either Sydney or Melbourne and the Teltra operator uses a database that CFS have input into, 99% of the time the call would then go back to the brigade on their Alerts phones - now that is a great plan

[corocfs]

what a time wasting excerie though (in a time critical moment)

firstly:
i ring triple 'O' - someone answeres after a couple of rings, i ask for fire, south australia... they re-direct me.... a couple of rings later, a computer answers "This is the 'BLAH BLAH BLAH country fire service... please hold the line" rings until someone answers....

wouldnt it be great if we just dumped the whole alerts systme and went straight to the telstra operator getting a rural SA town, redirecting to SOC

[Wagon 1]

Good luck getting the vollys to give it up mate!! I would give up Alerts in a heart beat, but you will have a hard time getting some brigades and groups to give up control!!

[strikeathird]

First, you ring 000.  BEFORE the operator picks up with which service fo you require, you are told by an Automatic Message, your call may be recorded.  (Something you DON'T want to be hearing when in a DIRE emergency.)  You get redirected, to either SAPOL, FIRE etc, get told again "THIS CALL MAY BE RECORDED" (More waste of damn time in an emergency!!)  Then, your call may be answered !  (IF you were put through to the right State...............Not the first time it has gone sour!!)

[corocfs]

thevollies should never have been given alerts... i have had to call 000 whilst in rural SA and was re-directed to an alerts phone.. what a sha-mozzle... firstly someone answered it and just "hello bills phone" then was confused when i was reporting a fire... on top of this other people kept logging in and straight away talked over the top of me, they each then thought they were talking to other members of the brigade and not an emergency caller.

i am against vollies having acess to the whole process, it should be left with SOC..

[Mike]

The ALERTS System works very well in our area. If brigades are using the system as you say, then a major skills upgrade has been identified, and needs to be brought up at the appropriate level. Or maybe they just need to look at the people on the system?

All new mebers being added to the system in our area recieve a brief training session about call taking. In general they shouldnt be releasing the pin to people that dont know better either....

My friends know when my phone rings and displays 'emergency call' to ignore it, or push the force kill button.

[Wagon 1]

Yeah, your brigade might be switched on, but as we know, there are a WIDE variety of people in CFS that often mean well but just don't get it, my brigade is in an urban area so we don't really use ALERTS, its more of a backup system.

[rescue5271]

Telstar can still trace a reverse call and they should have given you that information as far as I know you can trace calls into alerts systems has we have done this before not sure how our captain did it???

[oz fire]

Blinky, maybe you can find out how your brigade has traced them!!!

The system was designed that the calls went through one of two central systems (Murray Bridge or Gawler) where the computer allocateds the call, so not sure how this was got around, unless the call was made on 000 - then yes a number can be obtained

[rescue5271]

Like  triple zero call all reverse calls come up on telstra screen with address and number and this is how we where able to trace a call mind you its silly that someone should do a reverse call as triple zero is free...

[kat]

One night we had a strange call on the Alerts which was amazingly well handled by the SOC operator. At the completion of the call the SOC operator said "OK, the call came from a public phone outside the Riverside Hotel".

Awesome! Within 5 minutes we'd had stern words to some very shocked kids (and so did the local constabulary)     

[Wagon 1]

Nice work, I could just imagine the shock on the faces of the kids, good job SOC!!

[mengcfs]

We had a fixed alarm job at the old folks home, whilst on route a subsequent call was made to 000 from a staff member at the old folks home saying that everything was ok. 000 rang ALERTS and stated that the job at the Hospital was a false alarm. Once the crews heard this confusion set in - Do we have another job at the hospital?? Not sure how this info evolved, maybe the Hospital and old folks home have shared phone lines. I asked the staff at both premises and they certainly do not share or have internal phone lines. Maybe the 000 operator just buggered up. Would be good to have a simple way of tracing calls.
Adam.

[Roger]

"000" CLI (Call Line Indentification) data indicates the billing address of the caller, not necessarily where the call was made from. If the phone bill for the old folks home is sent to the hospital the CLI would have shown up as though it was the hospital calling, and this is what the Telstra "000" operator would have on their screen.

[Alan J]

Explanation of CLI follows. Ignore if if you don't care.

*Every* telephone call is traceable.  Calling Line Identifier (CLI) is recorded by Telcos for *every* call made through their network.  They use call origin, destination, time & duration to calculate their billing, so it's very important to them.   

"CLI PRESENTATION" comes in two-and-a-half flavours.

Optional presentation - calls between 'ordinary' Telco customers - the caller can choose to present or suppress their CLI info from the called party.

Forced presentation - the calling number is always presented when making certain calls. For example, calling number is always presented to the terminating carrier when calling a customer of another Telco (so that they know to charge the originating telco an arm & a leg to accept the call).  The terminating carrier is then required to honour the caller's choice of whether their CLI may be preseented to the terminating customer. CLI used to be forced to certain 'premium dial-up services' so that they can direct their billing back through the Telco, but I'm not sure how that works now.

Calls to '000' have forced CLI presentation plus a bit extra - called "enhanced 000" or "E000".  When you dial 000, the network immediately retrieves the *street address* of the calling line from the Telco's customer database, & on answer by the telstra operator, presents it on their screen. (mobiles have their billing address presented because  there's no fixed street address to display... *Doh!*)
When the telstra operator hands the call off to the emergency service operator/dispatcher, that address data is transferred to the dispatcher's terminal. 

EXCEPT when the emergency service is the CFS.... 
As at 2 months ago when I last visited SOC, CFS had chosen not to adopt 'Enhanced 000' capability.  I don't know why not.  E000 has 'only' been around for 12 or 13 years.  I'm guessing cost to set it up.

[rescue5271]

mengcfs,maybe you should give yhe hospital and the old folks home the station number get them to call it after a few mins and say if its a false alarm or a going job. We have done this with our hopital and two old folks homes and it works

[oz fire]

AAJ - CFS once had the 000 printer et all, however some boffins decided that there was no need for it when MFS also maintained the equipment - that was prior to the move to Waymouth street and in the days of printers, not online 
I believe they have looked at it a couple of times since, but as yet no joy

[backburn]

I know we get calls direct to our alerts no from 1800 reverse and this has had our alerts line locked up for about an hour they could  find where it came from as it was a public phone at the local high school. They now have games as to see who can make us turn up its worth $50 to them. 

[mengcfs]

*Every* telephone call is traceable.  Calling Line Identifier (CLI) is recorded by Telcos for *every* call made through their network.  They use call origin, destination, time & duration to calculate their billing, so it's very important to them.

So does this mean we can trace a call that has been made to our local ALERTS number even tho it has gone thru the telebridge.
PS is it Telstra we contact to trace a call thru the telebridge and what info do they need to start tracing?
Adam

[rescue5271]

Adam.you will need to contact region 3 h/q and ask them but I know when we did it we had to call the region  right after the call and they looked after it.

[oz fire]

Adam,

The R3 Duty Officer should be able to help you - they can then link with the SOC and provide authority to request such information on CLI. The local Police officers also have access to the same information and I believe can request back through their comms centre in Adelaide CLI for 000 calls - there is however certain privacy issues however CFS Duty Officers can obtain the info on request.