Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Firm Named to Help Police Install System to Find Cellphone Callers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 03:12:04 -0400

NYC Finally Gets Around To Planning For E911
 Contributed by mmasnick on Tues, Aug 12 2003

Back in April we had the story of how police departments in NYC had been wasting
all the money they collected for the E911 service on other things like "dry
cleaning bills, ballpoint pens, travel... and winter boots." Now that the deadline
is coming perilously close, NYC has finally decided it's time to get their act
together and have hired a firm to install the E911 service to help locate
emergency callers from their mobile phones. Took them long enough, didn't it? Of
course, to pay for such services lcoal governments need more money...

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August 13, 2003

Firm Named to Help Police Install System to Find Cellphone Callers
By MICHAEL WILSON

communications consulting firm announced yesterday that it has been selected to
help set up the wireless 911 system for
New York City police dispatchers. Plans for the installation of a new system,
which will pinpoint the location of callers
who make emergency calls from cellphones, were accelerated after four teenagers
drowned in January off City Island. They had called 911 from a boat whose location
could not be found.

The company, iXP Corporation of Princeton, N.J., has worked with New York's 911
system for several years. But the wireless mapping system will be the largest of
its kind in the country, said the company's chairman and chief executive, Richard
E. Dale.  The company said it would be paid $700,000 for software and setup costs,
including tests of the system in all areas of New York.

The company was also awarded a $1 million consulting contract to review the New
York Fire Department's radio system, which failed during the World Trade Center
attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

The company will lead a team to study the effectiveness of the department's radios
inside buildings. The project is the result of recommendations by the consulting
firm McKinsey & Company in its study of the Sept. 11 emergency response.
Both contracts are extensions of ones currently in force.

"The wireless 911 program has the potential to save lives and help the N.Y.P.D.
reach those in need even faster," said Deputy Inspector Charles Dowd, commanding
officer of the communications division, in a statement.

The police have said that the new 911 system will allow for precise tracking of
calls like the one from the teenagers in the boat on Jan. 24. It is unclear
whether rescue crews could have gotten to the small boat in time, but none were
dispatched, leading to calls for better equipment and training.

"Once it's fully implemented, when somebody dials 911 on their cellular phone,
we're going to know where you are," Mr. Dale said.

More and more of the city's approximately 10.3 million calls a year to 911 come
from cellphones. Similar systems are used in Houston and Rhode Island.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/13/nyregion/13EMER.html?ex=1061352000&en=582238146f561b6d&ei=5062&partner=TECHDIRT

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