Crawford County Slated For Mapping System Soon
(Southwest Times Record, July 6, 2004)
By Amy Sherrill
TIMES RECORD ASHERRILL@SWTIMES.COM

Crawford County is not far behind Fort Smith and Sebastian County in enhancing its ability to track cell phone calls that come into the area's 911 centers.

Those dispatch centers located at the Crawford County Sheriff's Office in Van Buren, the Alma Police Department and the Van Buren Police Department will have the capability to track a cell phone 911 caller's whereabouts by the end of August when they implement Phase II wireless enhanced 911.

Phase I provides a 911 call center with the telephone number of a cell phone caller and oftentimes the location of a cellular tower nearest to the caller. Sixty counties in Arkansas are Phase I, and eight counties are pending implementation, said Carmen Bryant, administrator for the Arkansas Commercial Mobile Radio Service, or wireless 911, board.

Phase II provides the call center with the telephone number as well as latitude and longitude of a cell phone caller. This information helps emergency personnel such as police or paramedics locate the caller quickly. Twenty-three counties in Arkansas are Phase II compliant, while 10 to 12 counties are pending, Bryant said.

Rusty Myers, assistant executive director of Western Arkansas Planning and Development District, said WAPDD worked with Crawford County officials to get the address points plotted in order to get their mapping software, microData GIS, up and running by the end of August.

Other area counties are working toward enhancing their ability to track cell phone calls.

Scott County will go Phase I about the same time they get basic 911 near the end of this year. Most of the 75 counties in Arkansas have basic 911.

"They came on so late we moved them directly into a GIS [Geographic Information System] format," Myers said. "We are working with them to complete their mapping and addressing. The work is being paced because the cash flow is so small. We're pacing it along with the money flow."

Bryant added that the 50-cent wireless surcharge is one of the reasons Scott County will implement the newer system so early. Arkansas was one of the first 10 states to retain recovery costs, which is a way for the wireless carriers and the PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points) to recover the costs associated with providing the service, she said.

"That 50 cents goes a long way," Bryant said.

In nearby Franklin County, Phase I has been implemented, but the Quorum Court opted not to not Phase II at this time, Myers said.
Logan County is in the process of implementing Phase I while Johnson County recently implemented land-line 911 service and is in the Phase I process, Bryant said. And in Polk County, Phase I is online and the county has requested to go to Phase II.

When a county requests a new phase, Bryant contacts the wireless carriers in that area so they can begin the process of providing Phase I or Phase II.

"They're all working toward it," Bryant said about the cell phone carriers. "In Arkansas, no one yet has had to file a complaint because of any carrier not meeting deadlines."