911 Center: News
Outbound Notification Project
Missoula County is in the process of purchasing and installing an outbound notification system. This product will allow the 9-1-1 Center to notify citizens of emergencies happening in their area, by calling designated telephone numbers and leaving a prerecorded message with the information citizens need. Our hope is to have this new tool available to the 9-1-1 Center before the end of summer. Check back for here for updates and links to additional information on this new enhancement.
Missoula County nears completion of Phase Two Deployment
Missoula County recently completed a year long enhancement to provide the citizens of Missoula County with Phase Two Wireless E911. This new service allows Missoula County 9-1-1 Dispatchers to obtain the Latitude and Longitude of cell phone callers. This new service allows dispatchers with the press of a few buttons to obtain critical location information on most cell phone callers. Getting a good location for an incident is a critical piece of the dispatch puzzle, and this new technology has all ready been used to locate citizens involved in automobile accidents, who were unsure of their location and suspects in crimes.
There are Three Phases of cell phone calls:
- Phase 0 – When a caller dials 9-1-1 the tower the signal is received on routes the call to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) on a 7 digit number.
- Phase 1 - When a caller dials 9-1-1 the tower the signal is received on routes the call to the PSAP using special 9-1-1 trunks and provides the PSAP with the telephone number, location of the tower the caller is being received on and the name of the cell phone company providing the service.
- Phase 2 – In addition to the information above, the PSAP is provided the Latitude and Longitude of the cell phone caller.
There are limitations to this system:
- Currently only Verizon and Alltel are up and running as phase 2, Missoula is working with Chinook Wireless to get them up to phase 2 and hopes to have this process competed prior to summer.
- Prepaid cell phones are not currently required to provide this kind of location information.
- Also callers who may be at the extreme range of a tower or are on an analog signal may also only be able to provide phase 0 or phase 1 levels of service.
Many of the other carriers, like AT&T, Sprint etc use the Verizon or Alltel towers, which allow them to provide phase 2 service. If you have questions about this or any of the services Missoula County 9-1-1 can provide, feel free to contact us.
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