JONESBORO — Last summer, a Jonesboro girl text-messaged friends, frantically telling them to summon police.
Someone had broken into the girl’s home, and the girl had hidden in a closet, afraid to call police because she feared her voice would alert the intruder.
Instead, she texted her friends, who then notified police.
“She was afraid to talk,” said Jeff Presley, the emergency system’s director.
The incident prompted Presley to create a system by which the Jonesboro 911 Center could receive text messages.
Now the Jonesboro 911 system allows callers to send text messages to dispatchers on a dedicated telephone line. The system, which started Wednesday, is the first of its kind in the state, according to David Maxwell, director of the state’s Office of Emergency Management.
It’s also a precursor to a national move for what the Federal Communications Commission and emergency officials call “next generation 911,” an idea that would let callers text emergency messages anywhere in the U.S. simply by dialing “911” and then being connected to the police jurisdiction where they are.
“We want to be on the edge of technology,” Presley said of Jonesboro, home to Arkansas State University, the state’s second largest public campus.
“This is a college town. There are a lot of cell phones out there.”
In September, Jonesboro’s 911 center received 4,210 calls. Of those, 3,351 were made by cell phones, he said.
Presley said he will spend the next few months promoting the new text-message service. The city’s dispatch center handles calls for police, fire and ambulance service not just in Jonesboro but across Craighead County.
He will travel to schools in Craighead County to tell students about the system and to hand out cards with the text message telephone number.
“The [big] target age for this is school-aged children,” Presley said. “They’re the ones who are committed to texting.”
The city also plans to put up billboards in the county advertising the telephone number and to hold several town meetings about the system.
About 50 people have called Jonesboro’s 911 center to program the telephone number - (870) 882-0911 - into their cell phones.
Richard Taylor, president of the National Association of State 9-1-1 Administrators in Raleigh, N.C., says what Jonesboro is doing is good idea. But he has some concerns.
“Cell phone usage and texting is huge,” Taylor said. “But we’re not able to text directly into 911 systems yet.”
He said that while Jonesboro’s text-messaging system may help residents who have programmed the center’s number into their cell phones, it won’t help those who don’t know the number, or those who call the number while outside the dispatch center’s jurisdiction.
“You can call the Jonesboro number if you are in, say, Washington, D.C., and send messages,” Taylor said. “And they can respond, but they can’t help you.
“I think this provides a false sense of security,” he said.
He added that the text-messaging service cannot locate cell phone users, and dispatchers will be required to send text messages to callers asking for their addresses.
“For 911 systems, the most important feature is location,” he said. “When you call a dedicated telephone number on a cell phone, it’s not going into the ‘native’ 911 system and they can’t locate you.”
That’s partly what’s holding up other cities from trying Jonesboro’s text-messaging system. Other Arkansas police departments said they are waiting for the “next generation 911” system to be developed before delving into text messages.
Linda Wilson, the assistant director of the Little Rock 911 center, said her center had no plans to incorporate text messaging on a dedicated line.
In Hope, where the city’s Police Department recently implemented Nixle, a text-messaging and e-mail service where police can send notices to residents, Chief J.R. Wilson is also waiting for “next generation 911.”
“It’s innovative on their part,” Wilson said of Jonesboro’s system. “But we don’t have enough dispatchers to do it here.
“Eventually, we’ll all have to integrate other forms of communication. You’ll get into a plethora of communication, like Facebook and other things. What can we handle?”
Presley said he hopes to soon add software to allow callers to text-message photographs and videos.
“I think this will be a beneficial tool to safety,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/30/2010