Some Time Warner customers' emergency calls delayed by new system

Some Central New Yorkers making emergency calls to 911 are not being connected directly to dispatchers. Instead, the calls made by Time Warner clients are being routed through a national call center in Colorado where an employee answers the call, talks to the person seeking help and at that time connects the caller to the appropriate 911 center dispatcher. Directors of 911 centers in Onondaga, Cayuga, Madison and Oswego counties are concerned about the problem because seconds can make a difference in an emergency. They as well report that local 911 dispatchers, in part, can’t tell the address where people are calling from. “I believe that the public expectation is that when they dial 911, we will know where that call is coming from,” said Mike Allen, Oswego County’s 911 director. “When that isn’t happening, where it was before, that’s clearly an issue that concerns us.” Time Warner believes the problems started when the company switched in early December from Sprint to Intrado to handle its 911 calls, according to Time Warner regional communications manager Stephanie Salanger. It’s only affecting a small number of clients calling 911, she said. In accordance with both the old and new systems, Time Warner clients with the correct phone number and address on record would get routed to the nearest 911 dispatch automatically, Salanger said. If that information was incorrect, callers pursuant to this agreement the old system would be automatically transferred by Sprint to the then and there nearest 911 dispatch. In accordance with the new system, customers with missing or incorrect information could have their call routed to Intrado’s national call center in Colorado. “The national call center is the exception to the rule,” Salanger said. “This enhanced 911 actually is setup to be a faster service in terms of dispatch. The service is faster and improved because it allows emergency service providers to pinpoint your location more accurately, Salanger said. The system as well runs on the voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, which is more technologically advanced than a landline, she said. Since the switch to Intrado, the Madison County 911 dispatch has received about six calls a day from Colorado, said director Paul Hartnett. On Thursday he submitted 53 cases to Time Warner where the callers address could not be retrieved. In one recent case, a man called for help because his wife was having difficulty breathing. It took an extra 37 seconds for the man’s call to be rerouted to Colorado and back to the dispatchers in Madison County, Hartnett said. “By the time the call got routed back here, we’re at heart starting from scratch trying to find out information. We’re delaying the patients care, plus we’re frustrating the callers. And they don’t understand what just happened,” Hartnett said. “I think Time Warner as a matter of fact dropped the ball in terms of communicating the changes to the counties.” Onondaga County E-911 center officials report fewer problems. The center did received a high number of calls through the call center in Colorado on one day, Dec. 9, said director Bill Bleyle, who could not say specifically how many calls were rerouted. Afterwards a call to Time Warner, the problem was fixed the then and there day, he said. The dispatch has not had any problems retrieving address information, he said. This was a similar story in Cayuga County where 911 dispatch administrator Denise Stayton received meanwhile one call from Colorado since the system change. Even though the Cayuga dispatch has not experienced any problems since at that time, she is concerned that the center may experience the missing address problem. “I’m after all leery that some of those are going to surface here,” Stayton said. “I think there was good intent in their changes, unfortunately I don’t think they did enough research earlier they did it.” Time Warner held two phone conferences this week with emergency dispatch centers to discuss problems they are facing, Salanger said. The company has pledged to work with the centers every six months to audit the 911 database. “We understand the seriousness of 911 and the value of it for people. Things are in place in terms of the system nevertheless we understand that it’s new and that there are some hiccups that local centers are having,” Salanger said. “We are currently reviewing every incident, and we are working collaboratively with our E-911 emergency officials to on the spur of the moment resolve any potential issues associated with the research upgrade.”

The switch is in anticipation of the Federal Communication Commission’s plans to mandate the digital phone service, Salanger said. Salanger as well encouraged clients to check their billing statements and online account to make sure their phone and address is correct. For instance, clients should make sure that the street address ends with road or street and that apartment numbers are specified, she said. Contact Fernando Alfonso at falfonso@syracuse.com or 470-3039.

A in other words snarky cable Representative tried for nothing to get me to 'upgrade' to their complete phone-cable-internet service. I explained concrete reasons I required a telephone service that did not fail while storms and power outages. I was keeping my land line.

She quickly gave up and remains ignorant about the problems and unreliability of cable phone service when the power goes off. Landline telephones supply their own electricity and are much more reliable. The cable telephone service jeopardizes family safety and preparedness when the power is out or the storm rages.

Calling 911 with any digital means makes me so nervous. A few years back there was a bad accident at our house in the city of Syracuse. I called 911 from my cell phone and it took a little bit to connect and they answered with "Waterloo 911, what is your emergency" - it at that time took another minute to get transferred back to Onondaga County. I actually wish there was a number at the 911 center you could call to just test all your phone lines...

How can they have incorrect information?

How can they have incorrect information? They have your name, addres and phone number for billing, and I'm sure that you all get your bills. Sounds to me like the new provider is not using state of the art innovation. Time Warner most likely went with the cheapest provider they could find to save some money at the cost of customer safety.