2008 Woodie Awards
Emergency Phones Dead
They should be working soon, for the first time this semester
Cindy Cotter
Issue date: 10/8/08 Section: News
Sept. 16, Ronald Pryor saw smoke coming from a trash can
outside the 500 building. Pryor could not find a fire extinguisher, but did find an emergency call box. When he pushed the emergency button, nothing happened.
The emergency phone inside the 500 building, as well as 10-12 other emergency phones on campus, have not worked all semester. According to Director of Campus Safety, Emilio Perez, the non-functioning call boxes are a serious campus safety issue.
By the time Pryor, a campus employee in media services, walked to Campus Safety to report the fire, maintenance personnel had already put it out.
Although Pryor was unable to find a fire extinguisher, there are several in the building. They are in recessed cubbyholes, which are painted the same color as the wall and are marked by small signs placed well above eye level. This, combined with the out-of-order call boxes frustrated Pryor.
"I pushed it [the call button] several times and didn't get a response," Pryor said.
There are no 'out-of-order' signs on the disconnected call boxes. Many of then are stainless steel plates on the wall of a building, with a red button marked "Emergency."
Pressing the button would connect immediately to Campus Safety, if the box worked. Others look like a traditional phone, but are labeled for eme rgency use.
The boxes and phones are out of order because the central hub that is connected by analog phone lines was destroyed, along with the 400 building that housed it.
Most campus phones do work because they do not rely on traditional phone lines. They use voice-over-internet protocol, or VOIP, to send a digital signal over computer lines. The non-functioning call boxes are in the process of being spliced into the VOIP network.
The blue emergency phones, like the ones in the parking structure on the northeast corner of the campus, still work because they were originally installed as VOIP phones.
According to Director of Academic Computing Technologies, Nilo Niccolai, all campus emergency phones should be working soon, but were expected to be done before school started. Niccolai also said that he never thought of signs because he kept expecting the phones to work.
The work was unexpectedly delayed when the employee who had been assigned to the task was forced, by illness, to stop. It was his job to sort through thousands of underground phone wires and trace the right ones to splice into the new system, a process that is time consuming, but more efficient than
laying all new phone lines.
No date has been given for completion of the wire correction.
outside the 500 building. Pryor could not find a fire extinguisher, but did find an emergency call box. When he pushed the emergency button, nothing happened.
The emergency phone inside the 500 building, as well as 10-12 other emergency phones on campus, have not worked all semester. According to Director of Campus Safety, Emilio Perez, the non-functioning call boxes are a serious campus safety issue.
By the time Pryor, a campus employee in media services, walked to Campus Safety to report the fire, maintenance personnel had already put it out.
Although Pryor was unable to find a fire extinguisher, there are several in the building. They are in recessed cubbyholes, which are painted the same color as the wall and are marked by small signs placed well above eye level. This, combined with the out-of-order call boxes frustrated Pryor.
"I pushed it [the call button] several times and didn't get a response," Pryor said.
There are no 'out-of-order' signs on the disconnected call boxes. Many of then are stainless steel plates on the wall of a building, with a red button marked "Emergency."
Pressing the button would connect immediately to Campus Safety, if the box worked. Others look like a traditional phone, but are labeled for eme rgency use.
The boxes and phones are out of order because the central hub that is connected by analog phone lines was destroyed, along with the 400 building that housed it.
Most campus phones do work because they do not rely on traditional phone lines. They use voice-over-internet protocol, or VOIP, to send a digital signal over computer lines. The non-functioning call boxes are in the process of being spliced into the VOIP network.
The blue emergency phones, like the ones in the parking structure on the northeast corner of the campus, still work because they were originally installed as VOIP phones.
According to Director of Academic Computing Technologies, Nilo Niccolai, all campus emergency phones should be working soon, but were expected to be done before school started. Niccolai also said that he never thought of signs because he kept expecting the phones to work.
The work was unexpectedly delayed when the employee who had been assigned to the task was forced, by illness, to stop. It was his job to sort through thousands of underground phone wires and trace the right ones to splice into the new system, a process that is time consuming, but more efficient than
laying all new phone lines.
No date has been given for completion of the wire correction.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Mark Stouffer
posted 10/08/08 @ 8:10 PM PST
Wow, let's hope there's not an emergency! Again.
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