By Peter Sachs / The Bulletin
WASHINGTON - By the end of the year, cell phone users across
Oregon should be covered by enhanced 911 service that
automatically gives their exact locations to emergency dispatchers,
which police say "could help save lives."
But for the time being, only a handful of counties in the state have that capability. Dispatchers in the rest of the state see only the cell phone number and the location of the antenna relaying the call. No Central Oregon 911 systems have the ability to locate where a cell phone call is coming from.
With so many people using cell phones, that shortcoming is increasingly a problem, public safety officials and industry experts agree. Already, nearly half of all 911 calls made in the United States last year came from cell phones.
"We have incident after incident that occurs that could be avoided if we had (the enhanced service) in place," Bend City Councilor Dave Malkin said. "We have people in remote locations that get in accidents and can get the call off but can't get a location."
Nationwide, the ability of local emergency call centers to locate those callers varies widely.
Federal Communications Commission deadlines set for cellular providers and emergency call centers to improve coverage have been extended and missed numerous times. Changes must be made both to the cellular networks and to the equipment in emergency call centers.
The cost of call center upgrades has been left to states and local agencies. A federal grant program to help states and counties was created in December 2004, but the program has no director and hasn't started handing out money.
According to data compiled by the National Emergency Number Association, 74 percent of the U.S. population, concentrated in urban and suburban areas, is covered by so-called Phase II wireless Enhanced 911. Under Phase II, dispatchers can see the exact location of a person calling on a cell phone.
But only six counties in Oregon, all on the western side of the state, have this functionality.
"This is technology that's in place," Malkin said. "It can be done, it could save lives."
Most of Oregon's counties have what is known as Phase I wireless Enhanced 911. This lets dispatchers see the phone number of a caller, which is useful if the call is dropped. It also shows the cell antenna the call went through, but that can give only a very rough indication of where the caller is.
"[Upgrading] is fairly important, mainly because so many people are using cell phones these days," Bend Police Chief Andy Jordan said. "We're running into a situation now where people call ... and you don't know where they are."
The money for improving Oregon's emergency call centers comes from a 75-cent monthly 911 tax on every land line and wireless connection in the state. Oregon spent about $2.5 million last year on upgrades to software, databases and maps as part of the program, said Shannon Marheine, 911 technology coordinator for the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. The state plans to keep spending about that much each year for at least the next few years.
The money that Oregon is spending doesn't include what carriers like Cingular, Verizon and T-Mobile must spend to modify their cell towers to handle Phase II emergency calls.
The major carriers in Oregon should have their gear upgraded by the end of the year, Marheine said. The OEM will complete all call center upgrades by June.
As technologies continue to improve, public safety professionals are excited about prospects for the future. Marheine said dispatchers with networked technologies could see a map with the locations of all emergency vehicles as well, letting them send the closest police, fire or paramedics to the scene.
And when it comes to the maps dispatchers use, satellite imagery could eventually show them the caller's location relative to things not usually on maps, like access roads, baseball diamonds and ski runs, for example.
For now, getting cell phone locations transmitted to call centers is the priority.
The current gap in capabilities is not only a potential public safety risk, experts agree, but highlights a difference between the perception and reality of 911 services.
"People have come to expect and rely on 911 to be there when they make the call," the FCC's Julie Veach said at a news conference Thursday.