chenango county–web site Chenango County 911 Coordinator Mathew Beckwith said Thursday the county’s E911 system should be fully operational in the next two months to have technology installed that will allow them to pinpoint the location of 911 cell phone callers.

An audit issued Thursday by state Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi said of the state’s 57 counties outside New York City, auditors found that only 42 had E911 systems, although the figure was a dramatic increase over a November 2002 audit that showed only five counties having the systems in place.

Beckwith noted the latest Hevasi audit which was made public Thursday was based on April, 2006 information.

Chenango County is listed only as a 911 county, because it has a fully operational 911 center for fixed location calls.

Chenango County currently can and does receive cellular telephone calls thus being able to take emergency notifications from people who know where they are in the county, Beckwith said.

Chenango lacks only the mapping required to finalize the E911 system and such is presently being finalized, Beckwith said. “It was supposed to be here this week, but we are now being told by the vender delivery with come next week. We have been working on the mapping for a six month period. Once the map is received we will notify the telephone companies and they have a 30-day period to respond. We hope to be up and operational by February,” Beckwith said.

Hevesi’s audit also found that neighboring Cortland County was one of five counties that could determine the closest cell tower to the caller, but not the exact location of the caller.

The audit also dealt with several other aspects of funding in regard to 911 issues.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm and is filed under News, Cell Phone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.