Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Hampton Roads Is Zeroing In On Full Emergency Service By '05

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 16:22:11 -0500

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=34124183&ID=cnniw&scategory=Business+and+Finance&

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Hampton Roads Is Zeroing In On Full Emergency Service By '05

Source: Virginian - Pilot

Publication date: 2002-11-04

Arrival time: 2002-11-05

If you dial 911 from a cellular telephone in Hampton Roads, local
emergency dispatchers will know your call-back number and the
location of the transmission tower carrying the call.

In the not-too-distant future, they will pinpoint your location
by latitude and longitude. And one day, they will know how high you
are off the ground.

That, authorities say, is cell-phone progress.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Virginia state police fielded the
rare 911 calls from cell phones because the calls were expected to
come mostly from motorists on interstates or state highways.

By 1999, though, the state police were being flooded with
wireless calls - many of which required attention from local
dispatchers.

The General Assembly directed local governments to take
responsibility. Managers of 13 Hampton

Roads 911 centers banded together to work toward federal
deadlines for improving their technology.

The changes are paid for by a 75-cent monthly tax on customers'
cell-phone service in Virginia, said Terry Hall, the communications
manager for York County Fire and Life Safety. Hall helped form the
regional committee.

So far, the conversion has cost more than $50 million statewide,
with some money going to dispatch centers and some to wireless
companies, he said.

By the end of 2000, all Hampton Roads centers could locate
callers by phone number and tower, Hall said. That narrows a
caller's location to a radius of several blocks to several dozen
miles, said Robert Nibarger, Virginia Beach's emergency
communications coordinator.

Now, several centers are close to having the technology to find a
caller's location within a half-mile radius. That system also can
show the street and block number where the call originated and give
approximate locations of boaters.

But so far, few 911 calls have been tracked locally this way.

That's because it requires cell phones that can transmit
geographical information. Verizon Wireless is the only company so
far that can provide latitude and longitude to all local emergency
centers, Hall said. The tracking system also works in York County
and Hampton with service from Nextel Communications.

The other companies are catching up.

When they do, Virginia Beach and Norfolk will be ready to go,
said emergency-services officials in both cities.

Chesapeake expects to reach that level in a few weeks, and
Suffolk is testing its system, police said.

"We have some capability," said Suffolk police spokesman Michael
E. Simpkins, "but we don't have what we need."

Portsmouth is expected to make the conversion around the same
time as the other cities - and in time for the 2005 deadline, Hall
said.

Meanwhile, Hall said, the need grows:

More than half of the region's 911 calls come from cell phones,
and 87 percent of the people buying cell phones name safety as a
major reason for their purchase.

Reach Amy Jeter at ajeter(AT)pilotonline.com or 446-2793.

Publication date: 2002-11-04

© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.

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