New phone systems that will be installed at RiverCom this year are the first steps toward handling more than phone calls at the 911 call center, said Jim Fosse, director of the RiverCom dispatch center.
While the new system should be capable this spring of receiving texts, Fosse said, he does not want to overwhelm the system or his dispatchers with too much new technology all at once.
He also hopes that surrounding counties’ 911 systems will be capable of receiving texts in 2016 as well. Otherwise, he said, people seeking help may not realize, when they travel outside Chelan and Douglas counties, that they cannot send those additional file types to a 911 center.
Fosse said he sees a big advantage in sending texts, in particular, by someone who is hearing- or speech-impaired, or someone who is afraid to speak into a phone because of a volatile situation.
The ability for the local 911 system to handle videos and photographs is several years out, Fosse said.
The new systems are being installed none too soon, according to Fosse.
He is optimistic that they will stop tense situations that happened last summer, fall and early winter, in which a 911 dispatcher’s station locked up and another dispatcher had to pick up that call. “For a while, it was happening once a week,” he said. He noted that calls were not dropped, and all people seeking help got through to a dispatcher.
“The system is so old it is failing,” he said. The current system, which began when RiverCom started in 2004, relied on copper wire technology, he said. Today, calls come in on mostly fiber. The system has been modified to handle fiber calls but it is so outdated that repairs are becoming very difficult.
TeleCommunications Systems, based in Maryland, was awarded the $350,000 contract to make the upgrades this year, Fosse said. The cost will be covered by a state grant.
©2015 The Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, Wash.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
