Enhanced 911 service being tested in county

By D.A. Wilkinson

Salem and Perry Township will be the last areas tested.

LISBON — Columbiana County’s technical advisory committee for 911 phone service will meet one more time before the system begins.

Officials previously announced the system would go into effect Sept. 11 in observance of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

But the committee members working on notifying the public about the change weren’t at the 911 meeting Tuesday.

The county’s plan is to provide enhanced 911 service throughout the county in five defined areas answered by five separate law-enforcement agencies — the county sheriff’s office and the Salem, Columbiana, East Palestine, and East Liverpool police departments.

“Enhanced” means the dispatchers will have information showing a resident’s or company name and address from which a call is made.

Robert Emmons, director of the 911 project, said system testing is under way in a clockwise circle starting in the eastern portion of the county. Salem and Perry Township will be the last two areas checked.

Emmons said testing should be complete by mid-August.

The committee voted to use software from NAVTEQ, a Chicago-based company, to provide mapping software at a cost of $7,825 a year.

That software will replace another firm’s programs the committee discovered didn’t work well. Emmons said it took the former company three weeks to correct a problem that, when addressed by NAVTEQ, took 15 minutes to fix.

The NAVTEQ program has information on the county and is in the process of getting information on locales five miles outside the county as a safeguard.

All that information, officials said, eventually will be replaced by the data collected by the county.

Emmons said some old county data is incompatible with the new software.

Some material gathered by the Ohio Department of Transportation is usable, however. Aerial photographs can be merged with street addresses for greater accuracy.

Some 44 Ohio counties are using the ODOT material.

Emmons said the data would cost about $360,000, but the state will pick up about one-third of the cost.

The next meeting likely will be the technical advisory committee’s last. By law, after the program begins, a new group will be formed to run the project. It will be called “The Columbiana County Emergency Services Committee” and will represent safety forces and telephone companies.

The new committee will oversee wireless 911 implementation, which would show dispatchers where an emergency cell phone call was made.

wilkinson@vindy.com