Anchorage Daily News

KENAI -- The Kenai Peninsula Borough's 911 system is getting a major upgrade.

The enhanced system will go into operation Thursday. It is expected to be more reliable and result in quicker responses by emergency crews, according to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management.

The upgrade consists of a new router, a $511,000 piece of equipment authorized by the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly by emergency ordinance in March.

The servers and switches at the Soldotna emergency 911 dispatch center will have a backup system at the Kenai Prism Training Center to guard against failure, Scott Walden, Borough emergency management coordinator, said Monday.

The system will allow all four of the Borough's dispatch centers -- in Soldotna, Kenai, Seward and Homer -- to receive their own 911 calls for assistance. The old system couldn't immediately route calls to the appropriate zones without going through the Soldotna center personnel.

Four phone companies operate in the Borough, including Alaska Communications Systems, General Communications Inc., TelAlaska/Interior Telephone and Matanuska Telephone Association.

All have been working on issues associated with the transition, the Office of Emergency Management said.

"The phone companies have been doing their part," Walden said.

The Borough's dispatch centers will have additional staffing Thursday to help with the transition. For the first 24 hours, both the old and new routers will be operating while any problems are fixed, Walden said.

Walden said preparation for the system upgrade has been under way for about 18 months.

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