Idaho Takes Step to Implement Next Generation 9-1-1

Idaho is planning to revitalize its emergency response system with new technology that will connect 911 call centers, and allow dispatchers to geo-locate callers immediately and receive text messages, photos, videos and live call transcriptions.

Next Generation 911 is a secure digital network that several states and U.S. territories have implemented to modernize a system first developed over 50 years ago — a system still using analog infrastructure in places like Idaho, officials said, making a transition overdue.

The system will take over a year to set up and even longer to fully implement, but the state has taken its first step toward modernization: The Idaho Public Safety Communications Commission approved a $15 million grant to move along Next Gen 911.

“Each day we stay on the traditional system is not good for emergency situations. The whole state, the whole country even, needs to be on the new system that connects all dispatch centers,” Idaho Public Safety Communications Commissioner Stephanie Johnson told the Idaho Statesman.

The IPSCC also approved a $1.33 million grant to support Geographic Information System projects in communities across Idaho to help make locating 911 callers more accurate and efficient. The funds will help support a four-person team that works directly with Idaho counties throughout the state, including 32 that don’t have a GIS professional on staff, according to a news release.

The system will cut down vital time in Idaho

One of the most important aspects of the system, according to Idaho’s 911 program manager, Eric Newman, is the ability for dispatchers to locate precisely where a call is coming from in real time, something the established system cannot do.

When calls come in now, the system uses cellphone towers to triangulate a person’s location. If a caller is located near two different counties — or even near a state line — the call could get directed to the wrong dispatch center, costing valuable time as that center redirects the person and information to the proper place.

Newman used Payette County as an example, saying a 911 caller there could wind up directed first to a dispatch center in Malheur County, Oregon, just across the Snake River.

“Within seconds Next Generation 911 will be able to locate somebody within feet of where they’re actually placing the call, and it’ll deliver the information that’s just based on that cellphone,” Newman said.

Eagle Fire Chief Tyler Lewis said the new 911 setup can cut down as much as five minutes of important time.

“Dispatchers can skip over questions of, ‘What’s your address? Where are you at? Where’s the emergency?’ They will get that Information immediately and can jump into what actually is going on to get first responders there quicker,” Lewis told the Statesman.

Another part of the system allows people to send texts, photos and videos to a dispatcher, and the system also can transcribe a call, according to the release. All of that data is sent directly to first responders.

The system will connect every call center in the state, which is critical in the event of a large disaster, Lewis said. Calls could go directly to another county if one is overwhelmed by calls or unable to operate, and it wouldn’t matter which county because of the seamless connectivity.

“If, say, Ada County had a large disaster, we would be able to fail over to Eastern Idaho and have them still handling our 911 calls,” Lewis said. “That’s just a capability that we don’t have today. It will be a lot easier and a lot quicker than actually having to reconfigure an entire system, like we do with the system now.”

What took Idaho so long?

Idaho joined the movement to the new system later than other states. It is now one of more than 40 states and U.S. territories already using the system or implementing it since 2022, according to the company that runs the system, Next Generation Advanced.

Only two counties are not part of the Idaho grant. Ada County, the state’s most populous, is one of them because it started a contract with Next Generation 911 in 2023, according to Johnson, who is the Ada County Sheriff’s Office 911 technical operations manager.

With the need for a new system and adequate county funding available, Ada County was eager to start the process, so it did so before the rest of the state, Johnson said.

The delay moving forward in Idaho was partly due to the lack of centralized funding for the system, Newman said. Each county or jurisdiction’s 911 system is mainly funded through the county-by-county Emergency Communications Fee, which is a surcharge of up to one dollar per month on phone lines.

The $15 million in funding for the Next Gen transition is coming via the Enhanced Emergency Communications Grant Fee, an additional 25-cent surcharge on phone lines. Residents in each county voted whether to opt into that funding fee when it went into effect in 2013.

The funding from that grant in each county will be pooled to purchase and set up a “better and advanced system,” Newman said.

The multiphase plan for implementing the new 911 starts with building and testing the software, which could take over a year, Newman said. After the beginning phases are established, more advanced aspects of the system — such as sending videos, photos and live transcriptions — will be put in place.

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