Wanda Freeman, Southwest Times Record

Sebastian County is prepared financially to upgrade its 911 system and to position itself for next-generation realities, County Judge David Hudson suggested Monday.

During a 911 Board meeting at which AT&T representatives described future call-routing technology and a MicroData representative demonstrated the latest dispatch-center software, Hudson offered a low-tech directive to the vendors:

“I need to see this translated into a plan outlining the costs involved. We need to translate functionality into money,” Hudson said.

He indicated interest in both the software upgrade and the capability to handle burgeoning 911 call types, such as texting, email and VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol.

David Carter, AT&T’s account manager for Arkansas, said he would provide a cost breakout and added that the county could become next-generation ready with the purchase of one piece of equipment.

About $214,000 has been planned into the county’s 2012 budget for new 911 phone equipment. The county plans to upgrade its existing equipment and install a backup system at the Sebastian County Emergency Management and Public Safety Facility.

Ronnie Freeman with AT&T described the exploding demand for next-generation routing capability as well as a sometimes surprising lack of technology and standards.

Some 70 percent of 911 calls are now made from wireless telephones, yet dispatchers can’t always identify where those calls are coming from as they can for land lines, Freeman said.

There are 23 million users of VoIP, 50 billion legitimate emails sent in 2010, 12 billion text messages sent per month in 2006 and 152 billion texts per month in 2009.

While some jurisdictions claim they can take 911 texts, Freeman said, the reality is the technology is not standardized. Worse, texts currently are a low-priority transmission, meaning they may not get through to 911 dispatchers immediately the way phone calls can.

He said the National Emergency Number Association is working with emergency professionals, lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission to develop standards that will account for such next-generation issues.

David Gleason with MicroData said his company and AT&T are partners across 22 states in introducing technology that will be compliant with NENA standards.

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