Upgrades to the 9-1-1 Jefferson City Communications Center later this year will allow operators to be able to tell where people on cell phones are calling from. That’s just one of the improvements a new system will offer compared to the more than decade-old system the call center is currently using. The city’s 911 Advisory Board met Thursday night to discuss a muti-phase technology upgrade to the Jefferson City 911 Communications Center.
The systems discussed in the upgrades were the 911 phone and radio system.
Support Services Commander for the Jefferson City Police Department Eric Wilde led the meeting Thursday to advise the board of a timeline for the new systems..
Wilde said the board will begin installing the new phone systems around mid-October, with the launch coming in November.
Wilde said operators are currently working with technology that is over a decade old and implementing these new systems will help speed up the process in the communications center.
“It would increase the efficiency with how we do business in the communications center. The faster we can process 911 calls and get those out to the radio, it could increase our response times as well,” Wilde said.
Chief Deputy for the Cole County Sheriff’s Department John Wheeler said said that the new phone system would help to enhance the ability to communicate with operators. He said the new phone system is a total improvement to the current system.
“No system is perfect. We’re finding bugs. We’re finding dead spots here and there. We’re finding some issues with radios. No system is perfect so we’re always going to run across some issues but it is a 99 percent improvement over what we had,” said Wheeler.
The board also discussed a system that would allow citizens to send texts and video to the communications center, however, they do not have an anticipated start date for this technology.
“If the capability is put into play a person could text their message to 911. So if they were unable to talk or if they were in a situation where they could not get out over the phone but they could text, they would be able to receive that in our communication center,” Wilde said.
The board also talked about updates to the 911-radio technology. The board is still working out a timeline for the new equipment but is hoping to implement a plan as quickly as possible.
The new phone system is anticipated to go live on November 15.