February 13, 2004
Mobile 999 callers 'pinpointed'
The London Ambulance Service has become the first in the UK to use new technology to pinpoint the location of mobile phone callers, reports the BBC.
"The new technology enables operators at the service's control room to see where the mobile phone user is calling from.
"When you make a 999 call you are connected to a BT operator," says Quentin Armitage, deputy director of technology at the London Ambulance Service. At the same time, the mobile phone operator provides information on the cell that you are in or what mast you are connected to to a BT database".
"When that call is passed through to us we are then able to look up that information in the BT database and we can display the area of coverage, the circle on a map for our call centre so they can what area the caller is in."
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