sherbert wrote on Oct 27^th, 2011 at 5:31pm:

I fear that the newspaper has got the story a little wrong. The big national launch will not be on 1 November, as a number of forces will not go live with 101 until 1 December.

Sussex has been live since July, but has waited before doing a major publicity campaign.

If they are going to keep the geographic alternative in use, they will need to be ready to refer to it to defray criticism from certain quarters. It was obviously omitted from the brief for the newspaper item quoted.

I personally believe that a universal charge of 15p per call (to cover the network connection from any operator) is defensible. If they are going to incur the expense of keeping a geographic number for essentially the same connection in use as well, then they must ensure that anyone who may benefit from using it is aware of it.

derrick wrote on Oct 28^th, 2011 at 9:10am:

Indeed, even though the article is only circulated to the people of Sussex, so the local element is paramount; if they travel to some other areas they will find that 101 will not be working for at least another month.

The disturbing point, noting previous comments here, is that whilst retention of the 0845 number (for a period) is mentioned, there is no reference to the geographic number.

More here.....


http://www.sussexpa.gov.uk/

and here....

http://www.sussexpa.gov.uk/latest/news.aspx?articleid=358

sherbert wrote on Oct 28^th, 2011 at 7:13pm:

I must apologise to the newspaper which I maligned previously. It appears that someone else is promoting a hoax by encouraging Sussex people visiting some other parts of the country to waste time in reporting crime by attempting to call 101 before it has been brought into service.

Noting the comments on this page, I must point out that hoaxes waste the time of citizens and may prevent them from attracting police resources to those who need them. How would you feel if you attempted to contact the Police using a number provided by the Police only to find that it was not working. There is no need to investigate the perpetrator of the hoax, as it is published on its website. This type of silly error is not a criminal offence, unless perpetrated deliberately, so the offender will not be dealt with by the courts.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Oct 29^th, 2011 at 2:52am:




On the database there are geographical numbers verified and unverified for Sussex police

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Oct 29^th, 2011 at 11:26pm:


Yeah, SayNoTo0870 has a particular aim - as stated above.

I think the introduction of 101, as long as there are alternative local numbers, is a good idea.

Hopefully it will reduce the amount of "silly" calls to 999, and calls that aren't relating to a crime in progress or someone's life being in danger.

It will hopefully be useful to people who are on holiday, or otherwise out of their home area -as if they need to phone the police, they don't have to work out where they are and what the right force's phone number is.

That said, if they wish to do a little research and save themselves 15p, fair enough.

I have only just learned that 101 launched in my area two days ago from a post on a broadband forum (the ISP's landline service listed the cost as 17.5p, and apparently this is correct - so much for it always being 15p).

I think charging 15p for this is indefensible, and just as bad as all the public sector use of NGNs over the years.

I have read some people's arguments, such as that it's "paying their fair share towards the cost of the service". So if, as a good citizen, I'm phoning the police to report crime or vandalism, which I could easily have just walked past and ignored like everyone else, I should pay for the privilege?

Then certain people go on to say that 101 is OK because the forum has always promoted advertising alternate numbers that people can call if they wish. However, where is the guarantee that the old numbers will be available indefinitely? The police website suggests they are for switchboards that may not yet accept 101 as a valid number.

I actually have my force's number, which has always been a geographical number, stored in my home phone and mobile, so if I did need to call, I would still have used it. As I've seen no publicity for this, I wouldn't have known about 101 if I hadn't read these forums.

I agree with jrawle absolutely and totally.   I think the whole point is that, if the police nationally wish to have a single short number which is easily recognised, I do not have a particular problem with that AS LONG AS local numbers staffed by local police staff who know the area (eg county) are also available.  However, I do have every problem with such a number being excluded from call packages; with regards to who funds this, it is largely something done for the benefit of the police forces as a cost cutting measure so I think they should pay for it, that is, it should come out of taxation and hence be included in call packages.   For those without a call package, 15p is not too bad, but my point all through this has been that if someone is doing a public service, as jrawle says, and doing what the police ask the public to do, which is reporting matters to the police, I do not think the caller should bear the cost.  Where we used to live, we went through a spell of serious anti-social behaviour problems where we and other residents of two villages where having to call the police numerous times per evening and it would have become very costly with 101 (999 would not have been appropriate as we needed to speak to a local operator &/or the officers who had dealt previously).