DANA AMIHERE, MarylandReporter.com, The Capital (Annapolis, MD)

The Board of Public Works this week approved the Maryland State Police’s purchase of a $7.1 million advanced 911 system that could allow citizens to call, text or even tweet for help.

The state police, who handle about 3 percent of the state’s crime calls, will not only be on the cutting edge of technology, they’ll have, well, technology.

Currently, 21 of the agency’s statewide barracks lack an automated answering system. All police dispatchers except those in Frederick County – who operate from a 911 call center – rely on regular telephones using a 10-digit number to receive calls transferred from 911 call centers.

The enhanced 911 system, known as Next Generation 911, will allow state police to recover a lost call directed to them and receive the same location data that a 911 call center receives from the phone used to make the call.

“There is catch-up going on, but it happens that the technology we’ve selected to catch up is surpassing” the existing system, state police chief information officer Michael Roosa said.

The Internet protocol-based system is prepared to handle new communication methods such as texting, video, Twitter and Facebook. Roosa said the state police are trying to make sure that people who may have access only to one of these technologies, or who can’t make a phone call, still can be helped.

While the system is expensive to maintain – it will cost about $500,000 per year – contracting with a mainstream provider such as Verizon, which supports the state’s call systems already, would’ve been significantly more costly, Roosa said.

Frequentis USA of Columbia, a subsidiary of a European company, was chosen in part for its cost-effectiveness, he said.

The contract is for six years, but the pilot system on the Eastern Shore should be fully operational by next year, with the remaining jurisdictions to come online in the second year, Roosa said.

“We’ll be able to take a call on the Eastern Shore and track it all the way to Garrett County in the west as it passes over to the barracks and never lose any of the information as we go,” he said.

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