Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Anoka County has receives a $41,550 grant from the Public Safety Foundation of America Public Safety Foundation of America (Nextel)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 16:59:17 -0500

. Posted: 11/20/03
 Anoka County has receives a $41,550 grant from the Public Safety Foundation of
America Public Safety Foundation of America (Nextel)
Emergency calls reach cyberspace

by Peter Bodley
Managing editor

A private foundation grant will enable Anoka County to enhance the 911
capabilities of its Central
Communications System.

The county has received a $41,550 grant from the Public Safety Foundation of
America, a non-profit
organization that manages grant funding for 911 applications, to improve and
automate the 911 caller
location process for wireless callers (cell phones).

According to Anoka County Commissioner Jim Kordiak, chairman of the Anoka County
Board’s
Management Committee, the county was one of only two foundation grant recipients
in Minnesota, and
there were only 20 awards made nationwide.

There is no match required for the grant, but 911 call taker computer
workstations will need to be replaced
to complete the project, said John Tonding, Anoka County communications manager.

But, that was planned as part of the installation of the new 800 megahertz
public communications system
in the county, he said.

This project, which is scheduled for completion in 2004 and which is being paid
for largely by bonds that
have been sold by the county, includes funding for the computer replacements and
new software,
according to Tonding.

“The grant will improve our ability to respond to wireless 911 calls,” Tonding
said. “It will be a significant
enhancement to public safety.”

For many years the technology has been in place to provide the location of 911
callers to Central
Communications 911 call takers when the call is placed from a wireline phone, he
said.

“This technology has been literally lifesaving,” Tonding said.

“We can dispatch emergency assistance to Anoka County 911 callers, even in
situations where the caller
cannot provide the location.”

But, Tonding said the technology to locate cell phone callers is only now being
put in place, and the grant
from the Public Safety Foundation of America will enable Anoka County to provide
its piece of the
puzzle at Central Communications.

More than 40 percent of all 911 callers to Central Communications are now by
cell phone, and this
percentage continues to increase, he said.

The current process that Central Communications has to use when receiving 911
calls via a cell phone is
through a commercial mapping program and manual keying in the 16-digit longitude
and latitude, Tonding
said.

“This process is slow and prone to error, and the current mapping tool is
inaccurate for caller location
purposes,” he said.

The grant funding will enable the county to automate the system so that the
location information from a
911 cell phone call will be in the form of longitude and latitude on the 911
display screen, eliminating the
time-consuming manual system in place now, Tonding said.

Right now, not all cell phone carriers have the location information capability
built into their cell phones,
but the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is requiring that all cell
phones sold in the United
States have that location information available in their cell phones within a
year.

According to Tonding, AT&T, Verizon and Quest have the location information
capability now, but
Sprint, Nextel and T-Mobile do not.

The county hopes to have the new automated system up and running by early
January, Tonding said.

“It will enhance our 911 call taking system,” Kordiak said.

The automated system will enable 911 call takers to pinpoint the location of the
call to 200 feet or less, he
said.
http://www.blaine-slplife.com/2003/November/20calls.html

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