By Mike Linn
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
PINE BLUFF, Ark. — More Arkansans in Jefferson County and across the state are dialing 911 from cell phones, a trend that helps reduce response time to critical accidents, crimes and fires.
At the same time, as more people call in vehicle accidents with cell phones, 911 dispatch centers are flooded with calls reporting a single wreck, which increases the demand on those centers.
“In the past, when you didn’t have cell phones, people had to go to a gas station or somebody’s house to borrow the phone to call 911 and report a wreck,” said Melinda Elliott, operations manager for Jefferson County’s Metropolitan Emergency Communications Association.
“Now, if it’s a real serious wreck, within a matter of minutes we’ll have got 50 phone calls on it.” The Arkansas Emergency Telephone Services Board will more than double payments to city and county 911 dispatch centers to almost $12 million beginning this year, said Paul Stricklin, administrator of the board.
That extra money can go to hire new dispatchers, if need be, to handle additional call volume, Stricklin said.
From 2005-08, the number of calls for 911 service from cell phones increased by more than 20,000 in Jefferson County, from 36,561 in 2005 to 57,157 in 2008, according to statistics provided by the Metropolitan Emergency Communications Association.
During that same time, calls from landlines in Jefferson County fell by more than 3,000, from 28,728 in 2005 to 25,251 in 2008.
For the first six months of 2009, there were only 10,903 calls from landlines to 911, the statistics show.
Cell-phone calls for 911 service are up not only in Jefferson County.
In Craighead County, 77 percent of calls in the first six months of 2009 were from cell phones, up from 71 percent in 2007. In Little Rock, cell-phone calls for 911 service hit 74 percent this year, up from 68 percent in 2007. In Sebastian County, cell calls reached 80 percent this year, up from 72 percent in 2007.
Cell-phone calls for 911 service pose challenges for emergency responders, said Patrick Halley, director of government affairs with the National Emergency Numbers Association.
“On a landline call, the physical address comes up as well as a call-back number, including what floor the call comes from and even an apartment number,” Halley said. “With wireless, it’s merely an estimated location, and that estimate varies on every wireless call.” Generally speaking, dispatch centers can pinpoint a 911 caller’s location from a cell phone within 50 to 300 feet, Halley said.
To locate 911 wireless callers within that range requires Phase II technology to be implemented by the area’s 911 systems and wireless carriers. The technology allows 911 dispatchers to receive the caller’s wireless phone number and his estimated location information, according to the National Emergency Numbers Association’s Web site.
In Arkansas, four counties do not have Phase II technology: Desha, Ouachita, Woodruff and Newton.
Desha County Judge Mark McElroy said he is working with McGehee Police Chief Jim White to implement the technology in that county.
“A lot of people have chosen to use their cell phone instead of their house phone, so we really need that capability,” McElroy said.
Desha, Ouachita and Woodruff counties are equipped with Phase I technology. Phase I technology pinpoints the cell tower from which a caller’s phone is routing, which in some cases can be miles from the location of the caller, White said.
“We desperately need this new technology,” White said. “My goal is to have it installed and up and running by the first of the year.” Newton County, though, doesn’t have even Phase I technology and won’t until January 2011, said county Assessor Sheila McCutcheon.
“If I call 911 on my cell phone, and we’re way over in the boondocks in Cave Creek where my husband’s from, we have to say, you know, `Go to the end of Highway 123 and take a right, go so far and take a left up that dirt road,’” said McCutcheon, who is in charge of getting the system set up in Newton County.
The Emergency Telephone Services Board disburses money collected from the 911 charge that cell-phone users pay in their monthly bills. In the past, the board received 50 cents a month per cell-phone customer, but this year the Arkansas Legislature approved a 65-cent fee.
Stricklin said 83.5 percent of the money goes to dispatch centers and is split up based on population. In the past, half that money was put in a reserve fund to help implement Phase I and Phase II technology, and half was used to help pay dispatchers’ salaries.
This year, all that 83.5 percent is to go to help fund dispatchers’ salaries. That means dispatch centers will have more than twice as much money to help fund salaries to handle additional call volume, Stricklin said.
Of the remaining money from customer fees, 15 percent goes to fund a statewide network and database that makes 911 work, 1 percent goes to fund the administrative costs of the cell-phone companies and a half-percent goes to fund the Emergency Telephone Services Board’s administrative costs.
Calls to a 911 dispatch center include those for help and some from police to do such things as run vehicle-tags checks.
In Benton County, calls to the 911 dispatch center have increased by 375 percent over eight years, in part because of growing population in Northwest Arkansas and in part because of the increased popularity of cell phones, said Matt Garrity, director of Benton County Central Communications.
Garrity, who is also the president of Arkansas Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, said he has requested more dispatchers to handle the additional call volume in Benton County.
“With the additional money they’ll be getting, they’ll have more money for personnel,” Stricklin added. “From what I hear, they’re getting more calls.”