Emergency Call Centers Continue to Upgrade to VoIP

Last summer a construction crew accidentally cut through some fiber-optic cables in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Things could have turned catastrophic when the crew determined the wires they tore through were the very wires that work the city’s Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

With the city’s PSAPs service down, many thought there would be no way for the city to field any emergency calls. However, the PSAP traffic was rerouted to a neighboring Minnetonka call center adding only a 30-minute lapse in service time. “That’s fantastic for an unplanned event,” said PSAP Manager Lt. Lori Dreier.

Dreier said they were only able to pull this off due to the city converting its entire communications infrastructure to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) earlier this year. Some residents who might have not understood the platform change are thanking the city now due to its portability, cost savings, and enhanced functionality.

Keith Lee (News - Alert), deputy director for the Spartanburg County, S.C., Communications/911 Department said VoIP technology allowed him to become portable. Lee is now able to take calls on his laptop if necessary. “As long as the IP address is identified, that central office information can be relayed to us anywhere,” he said. This portability can also help expand the call centers making for more access to emergency responders.

Lee said the county’s $700,000 Positron Viper system typically supports 20 positions, but could now expand to more than 300 users. “We’ve discussed partnering with a neighboring county that’s much smaller than [we are] and has limited revenue,” said Lee. “We have the ability to host that other county’s entire operations because of this IP-based solution.”

The program has been tested yet again in Arkansas during an emergency situation and has since received high reviews. Massive snowstorms last year had the center worried about being able to field the calls and the possibility of losing service they created an IP phone network. The network stood up and VoIP deployments around the state were completed within 48 hours.

“We knew technically that it would work,” said Arkansas CTO Claire Bailey, “and we used this weather incident to show how quickly it could be done and how well it could work,” she said.

It’s a tempting vision, but not all are ready to transfer over to the new system. Some jurisdictions already make rich data available to emergency dispatchers using proprietary systems or off-the-shelf vendors. Others say there might be long-term savings, but the VoIP will not resolve the biggest telecommunications concern, the challenge of location awareness. Until some of these features become available some centers are hesitant to make the change.

Edited by Jennifer Russell