A Hard Cell

SUSSEX COUNTY-One of the reasons people buy cellular phones is for the security of knowing if you are in an accident or an emergency situation, help is just a 9-1-1 call away. The confidence is well-placed in that cellular 9-1-1 calls do go to a police dispatcher. But there's a catch: In Sussex County, as in the rest of New Jersey, that dispatcher has no way of knowing the location from which the call is coming. If callers are unable to give a location, emergency workers can't find them. To add to the confusion, most cellular 9-1-1 calls made in Sussex County are answered in Totawa in Passaic County, where dispatchers refer the calls to the appropriate responders. In Sussex County, that means one of six regional answering centers. That's the opposite of 9-1-1 calls made on land lines, which can be immediately pinpointed by dispatchers in regional call centers. ONSTAR, the widely advertised vehicle-based phone service offered on many new cars, also immediately zeroes in on the exact location of a caller. It's a national issue that many 9-1-1 systems are addressing. In Orange County, N.Y., for example, which abuts Sussex County, officials are embarking on an upgrade in the 9-1-1 system that will identify the location of cellular emergency calls. Here, said Eskil "Skip" Danielson, Sussex County's director of emergency management and 9-1-1 communications, the issue is still being studied. Further, he said, the county does not control when upgrades in the system will be made. "It's not an issue in the county; it's an issue in the state," Danielson said. "Our responsibility is to make sure there are 9-1-1 plans in place, and to make sure each of the towns has a coordinator. "But it's state-managed in New Jersey. And it's essentially the state that is addressing the issue with cellular 9-1-1." No one from the state office of emergency telecommunications services — which, through Rutgers University is presently undertaking a study to consolidate 9-1-1 calling centers — was available for say when upgrades will be made. The technology is available and is used by ONSTAR as well as by LOJACK, the vehicle-recovery technology used to quickly locate and recover stolen cars. But, for cellular 9-1-1 calls, said Danielson, "the geopositioning equipment is not in place yet. The vast majority of cellular calls still go to Totawa. None of the hard-line calls in our area go to Totawa. "The cellular calls should come in on a map, very much as it does on ONSTAR," he said. "We need the kind of capability that ONSTAR has. The kind of capability ONSTAR has can apply to cell phones, so there's no question where the call is coming from." The county's 9-1-1 system began operating about 12 years ago. Implementation included renumbering some street addresses to insure that emergency services could quickly find any address. The system, Danielson said, included provisions for future growth. Counties and communities were allowed to decide how set up call centers for land-line calls, called Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Some counties, including Warren, established a single center for the county. Sussex County opted for six regional centers, in Andover Township, Sparta, Vernon, Hardyston, Newton and Hopatcong. The centers are located in police stations. "From hard-line phones, PSAPs automatically get the phone number and the location you're calling from," said Danielson. "They don't answer ‘what is your emergency,' but they ask ‘where is your emergency?' "That's so the call can be routed immediately to the correct PSAP, if it hasn't been routed already." As for locating the source of cellular calls, Danielson was confident New Jersey will address the problem. "No doubt it's coming, either by triangulation or even just getting two lines that cross," he concluded. "It is being worked on."