Dispatch Center to get upgrades
WAYNESBURG – Greene County commissioners voted Thursday morning to continue upgrading the county’s 911 phone system that shows dispatchers where an emergency call is coming from.
Commissioners agreed to spend $147,500 for Mission Critical Partners Inc. to update the “selective router” system and automatic location identification database sent thorough the Verizon network router.
That, along with the $12,000 it will cost to purchase new equipment and rewire the dispatch center to the network, will be paid through a grant from Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.
County Chief Clerk Jeff Marshall said the system was last upgraded in 2003. That system worked fine, he said, but with the advent of smartphones and texting capabilities, the selective router needed to be upgraded.
The biggest reason for this particular upgrade is to help pinpoint calls coming from communities along county borders, such as Clarksville, that might share exchanges or for cellphone calls that must be triangulated to find the location.
“We’re just making sure that all of these (calls) are going to the right place,” Marshall said. “It’s going to be done right and it’s going to be seamless. We’re trying to make things better.”
Last January, the county spent $284,450 to purchase a new mainframe computer to replace an aging system in operation for more than a decade. That system, installed last summer, interfaces with the county’s mapping system and has the ability to communicate with computers installed in police cruisers, giving officers more information before arriving at a scene.
The new system could eventually allow for people in an emergency to text dispatchers, Greene County Emergency Services Coordinator Greg Leathers said.
“We’ll be able to enter the 21st century in technology,” Leathers said.