Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Carroll County 9-1-1 Officials Call For More Cell Towers

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:50:49 -0500

This a change a county requesting additional cellsites.................
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Carroll County 9-1-1 Officials Call For More Cell Towers

BY DIANE M. KOMISKEY - Prairie Advocate Reporter

Jeff Doran’s recent cell phone call from an accident scene in Carroll County did not go
through. Doran, the Carroll County
sheriff, repeated what the victim of a fatal accident in January had done. The man phoned
for help while trapped beneath a
truck.

“We knew (the victim) had tried to make calls,” 9-1-1 Board Chairman Matt Magill said.
“One of his last calls had come into
the 9-1-1 center, but that was all.”

The sheriff’s call produced the same results as the accident victim’s. “I could not get
any reception,” Doran said.

The incident was at Lake Carroll, in northern Carroll County, but Doran said it could have
happened many places in the
county. The rolling hills that enhance Carroll County’s beauty detract from cell phone
service “It’s the nature of radio waves,
and it means we are always going to be at the mercy of nature, the terrain and everything
else,” Magill said. Calls made to
9-1-1 in an area that lacks cell service may connect to the county 9-1-1 center and be
dropped, not connect at all or connect
improperly, Magill said.

County officials want to do something about the problem, which is not unique to the
county. The 9-1-1 board authorized Magill
to ask cell phone companies to increase the number of towers in the county and to seek the
Lake Carroll Association’s
support.

Lake Carroll General Manager Daryl Johnston said he has asked Nextel Corp. to consider
putting a tower on Lake Carroll
property.

“It is something I feel very strongly about needing for the safety and security of our
residents,” Johnston said. Nextel coverage
extends west from Chicago to Shannon, about 10 miles from Lake Carroll. Doran and Johnston
have similar goals.

“I want better cell coverage for Carroll County, not just for Lake Carroll, but for all of
Carroll County, so something like this
never happens again,” Doran said. “To me when you have one tragedy like we had it is a
travesty.”

The county has five cell towers, three owned by U.S. Cellular and two by Verizon Wireless,
Magill said. He has drafted letters
to the companies. Magill and Doran said the letter-writing campaign is worth the effort.
Doran especially would like towers
added before the boating season.

“We get emergency calls from the Mississippi River,” Doran said, “and you never can tell
if you’re going to have coverage or
not.” The boaters who are able to reach a 9-1-1 dispatcher oftentimes cannot identify
their location, Doran said.

The importance of knowing location highlights a difference between a line call and a cell
call. The county’s 9-1-1 system can
trace a call made on a line-based phone even if the caller is unable to speak or hangs up.
But a 9-1-1 dispatcher has no way of
knowing a caller’s location if he does not provide it.

Magill said cell phone companies closely guard their customers’ identity, and privacy
regulations prevent 9-1-1 centers from
obtaining databases of cell owners and their addresses. The inability can be deadly.

“More and more people are depending on wireless phones,” Magill said. “For some, it is
their only means of communication,
and in this (the Lake Carroll accident) case, someone was depending on it for his life.”

Calls to Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular spokesmen were not returned.
 http://www.prairie-advocate-news.com/cell.html
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From: "argonnj" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 09:41:43 -0000

Nice to see a government body that actually wants more towers.  Most will do whatever possible to prohibit them, bending to the NIBY demands of stupid residents that think they will get cancer from them.