Technical investigation shows
TelCell 911 calls not received
PHILIPSBURG--Based on a technical investigation of the 911 emergency hotline at the Police Dispatch Centre in Philipsburg on Tuesday, it has been concluded that only calls to the hotline made from TelCell cellular phones aren’t being routed to the Dispatch Centre.
This finding was made known to The Daily Herald by a group of technicians and management representatives of both United Telecommunication Services (UTS) and Zenitel, two of the three companies needed to make the hotline work optimally. Missing from the group was the third telecommunications company TelEm/TelCell.
In addition to finding a technical solution for that problem with TelCell, Police Chief Commissioner of the Windward Islands Derrick Holiday said Tuesday he would look into having two additional staff members join the four persons currently manning the Dispatch Centre. He will also discuss with the Fire and Ambulance Departments whether they would be willing to hire two staff members each to add to that number, thereby creating a 24-hour answering service for emergency cases.
Holiday said this joint venture would hopefully be seen as a positive move considering that all the departments would fall under the umbrella of the local Government once the new status for St. Maarten took effect.
Regarding the calls during Saturday’s fire, Holiday said, “It is my understanding that the call was answered around 7:00pm Saturday and relayed to the relevant departments. We do realise though that there is still a technical problem that needs to be resolved, and we will solve it.”
Tuesday’s technical investigation became necessary after several complaints were made that during Saturday’s fire that destroyed the Matser complex in Middle Region, family members and others had called 911 several times, but no one had answered the phone for nearly an hour.
This reportedly resulted in the Fire Department receiving late notice of the fire in progress and is widely believed to have contributed to the complete destruction of the property in which eight persons lived.
The two companies UTS and Zenitel took the initiative to conduct the investigation in light of the many complaints that attempts to obtain emergency assistance via that number fail too often.
Representing UTS during the technical investigation were UTS Interim Chief Operations Officer for the Eastern Caribbean Glen Carty and UTS technician Patrick Illidge. Zenitel was represented by its General Manager Rene Hoogenboom and one technician.
They met with Holiday and Deputy Police Chief Commissioner Richard Panneflek in the Dispatch Centre to discuss the problem.
They explained that all 911 emergency calls from TelEm landlines, East Caribbean Cellular (ECC) cell phones, and UTS-Chippie GSM phones were being routed properly through the specially designed Emergency Dispatch Router provided by Zenitel to the Dispatch Centre. However, calls coming from TelCell GSM cell phones were being routed to the police PBX System via the regular 542-2222 number.
This problem probably started when the Police Force received a new Chuchubi communication system from Zenitel about a year ago. It will have to be resolved by TelCell technicians.
Attempts to contact TelCell General Manager Bryan Mingo were unsuccessful. However, Carty disclosed that he had explained the technical findings during a telephone conversation with Mingo on Tuesday. He said Mingo had said TelCell would await a formal request from police to have the technical changes made.
TelEm provides eight landlines that go to a computer server provided by Zenitel, which the dispatch officers use to answer emergency calls from local phone companies. UTS provides two services in that it installed the Police Force’s PBX phone system and provides cellular service via its GSM-Chippie Network from which customers can dial 911.
TelCell and ECC also provide the 911 emergency services.
