IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

It may be noted that the Union Telecom Ministry had earlier rejected the Delhi Government's proposal for three-digit toll free number facility to answer all queries during the Games. It also proposed 2010 toll free number, which was also rejected. According to Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta, the Telecom Ministry has provided a four-digit toll free number, but it is not clicking to Delhi Government's IT department. Government's Tourism department has released a 24x7 toll free number 1280 on Thursday.

All these Sevamitra Kendras are connected with broadband service. Because of this, the district collector can see and read from his office whatever complaints are received at the Kendras and how much of them have been disposed of. According to the nature of the complaint or application the case is quickly disposed of. These Sevamitra Kendras are being run in rural areas and they are gaining popularity every day. The main reason for the popularity is that people's long pending problems are being solved within minutes!

New York's 311 service is the phone number for all the US government's information and non- emergency services.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen visited the headquarters of the service in the New York Mayor's office earlier this year on a visit to the city and said he was impressed by the set-up.

Many government services and information can be accessed by a single and simple delivery system - the mySMS 15888.

Through this single SMS number, users can expect about 1,700 services to be available this year, said the Malaysian Administrative Modern­isation and Planning Unit (MAMPU) director-general Datuk Normah Md Yusof.

One concept public-sector officials may find useful is mesh networking. The technology allows mobile phones to share data and messages with one another over a local area when there’s no active cellular network available. In addition, mesh networking can potentially help offload communications surges from working networks during periods of high activity.

The city of Magdeburg in collaboration with the state of Saxony-Anhalt joined the 115 service. Commenting on this, the Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology and Secretary of State, Cornelia Rogall-Grothe said: "The provision of the 115 service in new states is an important step towards the development of the D115 network and the planned transition from the pilot phase of 115 to a regular operation in spring 2011."

Im Kern sollen Softwarekomponenten gemeinsam beschafft und betrieben werden. Die Kooperationsvereinbarung wurde durch Verbandsdirektor Winfried Manns, Geschäftsführer Prof. Dr. Gunnar Schwarting und Geschäftsführenden Direktor Ernst Beucher für die drei kommunalen Spitzenverbände sowie Ministerialdirektor Jürgen Häfner als Vertreter der Landesregierung unterzeichnet. „Die traditionell gute Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Land und den Kommunen bei eGovernment-Projekten in Rheinland-Pfalz wird durch diese konkrete Vereinbarung erneut unter Beweis gestellt“, betonten Manns und Häfner bei der Unterzeichnung.

Hierzu erklärte Bundesinnenminister Dr. Thomas de Maizière: "Mit Dresden und Magdeburg haben wir zwei Leuchttürme geschaffen, die für kompetenten Bürgerservice, moderne Verwaltung und den Abbau von Bürokratie stehen. Als Bürger Dresdens freue ich mich sehr, dass ich die 115 nicht mehr nur in Berlin, sondern nun auch an meinem Wohnort nutzen kann."

By dialing 120 (Seoul Call Center), foreigners can get assistance in English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Mongolian from some 20 staff. The counseling service covers a wide variety of issues such as transportation, tourist attractions, immigration matters, financial transactions, and cultural performances.

That has been one of the crucial factors for the citizens to stick to private sector products and services as much as they can. There are many instances that we face difficulties in finding the correct person who handles the matters and most of the time people send from pillar to post when it comes to documentation. People are getting lost in the process and ultimately waste money to get things done.

The 111 number will be used to supplement the 999 emergency number and NHS Direct, by connecting callers to non-emergency care services, such as urgent and out-of-hours services, using the NHS Pathways software.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley told reporters last week that NHS Direct would be replaced with a new 111 number service. But the helpline told EHI Primary Care that news of its demise was premature.

“It’s not the end of the organisation but the end of the [NHS Direct] number,” a spokesperson said when asked to clarify whether the organisation is being scrapped or subsumed within a new set-up.

'They’re the first on scene even though they’re not physically there, and the quality of your response often starts with a skilled 911 dispatcher.' Imagine a job that involves managing the worst day of someone’s life dozens of times every day. Answering phone calls from scared or angry people for 10 hours or more at a time and coordinating a rapid response from multiple agencies. One mistake or misstep could have potentially fatal consequences. This is the job description of a 911 dispatcher.

For emergency services to successfully save lives, core functions like 911 must be up to date. Changes in technology have created problems for providers working with outdated systems, but also offer great potential for reforms that will enable better services.

ESSENTIAL 911 UPGRADES

911 systems have served the public for the last 40 years. They were originally designed to take calls from landlines; the data collection technology available under old systems was based on gathering location information from landline numbers to localize an emergency to a particular address. But in the last decade, the percentage of 911 calls made from cell phones has skyrocketed. This has led to challenging times for 911 call centers as the technology underpinning the old systems no longer works in an increasingly mobile world. Operators’ inability to locate cell phone calls has proven deadly when callers are unaware of their precise location.

The days when cities offered a three-digit hotline service have been eclipsed by what might be called the Amazon era, where customer service is paramount.

Boston, a city of nearly 650,000, launched in 2009 what is probably the first mobile app for 311 services. BOS:311, formerly called Citizens Connect, allows anyone to request a variety of services using their smartphone and an Internet connection. The app even allows them to take photos of a pothole, geotag its location, and forward to the city so workers can quickly find and fix the problem. Today, the data collected from 311, whether from the app or from regular phone calls, helps the city not only decide how it should improve services, but it also can figure out who needs those services more, and if they aren’t getting the right services, why not.

The joint city networking project — made possible through an intergovernmental agency agreement — will be a vast step toward modernizing a largely unchanged emergency system.

For most people, knowing how the 911 system works isn’t important; it just has to work when they need it. But as our landline phones gave way to cellphones and cellphones evolved into smartphones, 911 centers have had to adapt to the changing environment to provide consistent, dependable service.

And in the foothills of Northern California, a cluster of municipalities is looking toward a networked 911 system that will eventually allow them to accept streaming video, text messages and, of course, the voice call.

Some public safety access points (PSAPs) are upgrading their equipment or reaching partnerships with other area call centers that have next-gen 911 to cover their jurisdictions. But there are others that haven’t, which increases the risk of people texting for help and not receiving an answer.

New phone systems that will be installed this year are the first steps toward handling more than phone calls at the RiverCom dispatch center.

It should be possible sometime in 2016 to send text messages to the 911 system that covers Chelan and Douglas counties in Washington.

New phone systems that will be installed at RiverCom this year are the first steps toward handling more than phone calls at the 911 call center, said Jim Fosse, director of the RiverCom dispatch center.

As more people transition to smartphones as their only communications device, pinpointing a 911 caller’s exact position can be challenging using GPS, particularly if the person is indoors or in an urban area where the signal may be weaker. While the wireless industry uses various technologies and procedures to ensure call location accuracy, a new advocacy group isn’t satisfied with the results and is pushing the FCC for stricter regulations.

The profiles from Smart911 are designed to provide more personal information about a 911 caller so that emergency responders are better equipped to deal with that caller’s needs. Users can go online to the Smart 911 to input a range of information about themselves, such as phone numbers, household information, medical conditions, photos of children and information about their pets, according to the company’s website.