The coordinating council for 911 emergency responders in the Kans...
The coordinating council for 911 emergency responders in the Kansas City (Kan.) Metro area voted to fire SBC as their E-911 database manager and set up their own system for routing 911 calls and providing area dispatch centers with…
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current location information on 911 calls. The MidAmerica Regional Council (MARC) voted to spend $1.8 million on the communications and information hardware to manage its own E- 911 database. The council cited chronic problems with missing records, slow error correction, poor quality control, inadequate coordination with telephone carriers, poor documentation of database changes and inconsistent data formats. It termed SBC’s database management “sloppy” and said that can’t be tolerated when life and property are at risk. The council said that when they wanted to directly update the E-911 database, SBC refused access. SBC denied the mismanagement allegations, saying it provides more than 500 E-911 systems with quality database management services. SBC said it denied MARC direct database access because of sensitive information such as unlisted phone numbers. In order for MARC to accomplish its intention, it must get state certification as a telecom carrier in both Kan. and Mo., and negotiate interconnection agreements with SBC and other telephone carriers, but MARC estimated the move would save $1.4 million annually on 911 maintenance costs.