‘911’ Cellular Calls Are Free

OK, all you folks with your $3,000 cellular phones in your $30,000 Mercedes Benzes and BMWs. Has the phone company got a deal for you. Henceforth, whenever you see an accident, a stranded motorist, a car on fire or some other problem in need of prompt attention from the authorities, you may make “911” emergency calls from your car phone without having to shell out a 45-cents-a-minute usage fee.

As of last Friday, and with the full approval of the state Public Utilities Commission, PacTel Mobile Access, the operator of cellular systems in the Los Angeles region, Sacramento and San Diego, waived all usage fees for 911 calls. (The 45-cents-per-minute rate is applied between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and drops to 27 cents a minute from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.)

“It’s a public-service program,” a spokeswoman explained. “We want the cellular phone to be seen as a public-safety tool. We don’t want people to have to think about the money involved in making an emergency call.”

The move to free 911 cellular calls comes just three weeks after the state Legislature, responding to increasing concerns about accidents caused by inattentive cellular phone users, asked the California Highway Patrol to study the impact of widespread cellular usage on the safety of the state’s highways.

However, both the company and a representative for Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), sponsor of the measure, said there was no link between the two moves. The company said the CHP received more than 1,000 calls to 911 in August from cellular callers in the Los Angeles region, an area with more than 36,000 cellular subscribers.

The new 911 policy covers cellular users in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Sacramento counties as well as subscribers to the newly inaugurated system in Ventura County. The latest system, which started last Monday, expects to attract about 300 subscribers before the end of the year and 6,500 customers by 1990.