METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SERVICING EMERGENCY CALLS FROM A DATA NETWORK

Emergency calls are serviced from a data communications device (104) via a wide area data network (102), for example, the Internet. A user of the communications device registers for emergency call service on an emergency call site that is associated with the wide area data network (200). An operator is associated with the emergency call site for handling emergency calls. When required, the user initiates an emergency call from the communications device (202). Then, the user provides information about the emergency to the operator through a real-time online chat (210). The operator performs a database query to determine emergency numbers for responding to the emergency based on the information received from the user (212). After selecting the appropriate emergency number, the operator connects the call to a local authority who is associated with the selected emergency number via the public telephone network (216).