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911 addressing problems from outageApr 01, 2010 (Kerrville Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- During last week's phone outage across the Hill Country due to a fiber optic cable being cut near Comfort, many residents were surprised to learn they couldn't use their phones or contact 911 if they had an emergency. Fortunately, no major emergencies were reported during the blackout. The outage even surprised those at the Kerr Emergency 911 Network, which thought its system was impervious to this kind of breakdown. "I would not have suspected that fiber cut to have the devastating effect it had for 911 and general services," said Bill Amerine, executive director of the Kerr Emergency 911 Network. "It impacted the call center and the telephone companies that support it." All of the phone companies rely on a redundant network to get information. That means when one point in the system fails, connectivity is sustained by routing calls through a redundant connection. Amerine said when the cable was cut, all Windstream 911 calls were diverted as planned to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office dispatch center, but Hill Country Telephone Co-op customers heard a recording that all lines were busy. "Right after that happened, we worked with our staff and Hill Country Telephone, so if we ever have that problem again, callers will get to the 911 call center," Amerine said. "Nobody anticipated that cable being cut would have caused that failure. With normal line link failure, the call will bypass other providers to get to the 911 network. The nodes are supposed to reroute the call automatically." When a person calls 911 from a county land line, the call is routed through a local phone company switchboard at a central office in town. Once it hits the switch, the switch recognizes the call as a 911 emergency and sends the call to a tandem switch in San Antonio. San Antonio determines which 911 center in the region the call needs to go to, location of the call, which police, fire and EMS personnel should be notified and routes the call back to a central office, such as Windstream, before finally looping to a 911 call center. That process takes less than one second. "Once it hits our equipment," Amerine said, "the call is ringing at the 911 operator's desk. While it is ringing, the call is going through Austin or Houston, which sends information back to the call center displaying physical address plus records such as if the homeowner is diabetic or other helpful information for emergency responders." For wireless callers, the process virtually is the same, except the call is routed through a mobile processing center in San Antonio and back. Amerine said the redundancy issue has been resolved, thanks to quick work by Hill Country Telephone Co-op. "The issue was very quickly resolved and the problem should not occur in the future," Amerine said. Paul Gonzales, public information officer for the Kerrville Police Department, said 911 calls from inside the city made it to their 911 call center. To see more of the Kerrville Daily Times or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dailytimes.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, Kerrville Daily Times, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |