Alabama Wireless Board issues report on 911 center

A review by Alabama Wireless Board members Monday showed 911 operators for the Dothan/Houston County area can not track the exact location for some wireless customers.

Roger Wilson and Bill Brodeur, members of the Alabama Wireless Board, reviewed the 911 communication centers for the county and city after local emergency officials recently discovered the communication centers could not track the exact location for some 911 calls made from specific cell phone customers.

Wilson said the Dothan/ Houston County 911 communication centers are what is referred to as phase I and phase II compliant. But he said the review did show some training and equipment issues as part of the phase II compliance, which allows 911 operators to pinpoint the exact location of a 911 caller.

“You’ve got two companies that have not been sending phase II data,” Wilson said. “T-Mobile and Verizon are not going to plot because they’re not sending the data.”

A red symbol of a telephone should pop up on the computer monitor to show the exact location of a 911 caller. The symbol doesn’t appear for 911 calls made with Verizon or T-Mobile wireless devices.

Wilson said he hoped to have the remaining two companies sending the phase II data within a month.

“If they’re involved in a wreck then they can plot it on a map and get an exact location,” Wilson said of a phase II compliant 911 caller.

Tim Stewart, the information technology director for the city of Dothan, said the city of Dothan bought the computer programs to become phase II compliant several years ago. But he also said the city did not send a letter off to the companies requesting phase II data until January 2008. 

“The issue is large. You’ve got customers out there calling 911, and we can’t track where they are,” Stewart said. “There are issues and we are working on those issues. We can still get help out to them.”

Stewart said 911 operators can still track the calls to nearest cell tower, and still have voice communication with the caller. Stewart also said 911 operators
can track the exact location for customers from Alltel, Nextel, Southern Link and Sprint.

“I think the majority of the issues were training,” Wilson said.

He said there were some operators who did not know how to use the computerized mapping programs. But there was also a one or two second delay in pinpointing the exact location in phase II compliance.

“Everybody here needs to work together for the same common goal ... to serve the citizens,” Wilson said. “I’m not here to get into a turf battle.”

Brodeur said they will examine the Dothan/Houston County 911 records to determine when the requests were made to the two remaining companies. Brodeur said according to Federal Communications Commission regulations the wireless companies have six months to comply with the request or face a possible fine.

Caran Smith, a spokesperson for the Alabama and Georgia regions of Verizon, said they received the request for phase II compliance data on Feb. 6.

“We responded that same day,” Smith said. “We are now in the process of updating our equipment to be able to transmit the location information of a 911 call. It is very important to us. Wireless service is part of our daily life. We have a very good record of when these requests come in and quick responses.”