Liv­ingston County 911 Goes Next-Gen With Major Tech Upgrades

GENESEO, N.Y. -- At 6 a.m. Thursday, the Livingston County 911 Center switched over to its new radio communication system. That means 21 fire departments, 12 EMS squads and 11 police agencies in the county are now working on one frequency out of one dispatch center.

This has taken three to four years of planning and $10 million.

"The old system is just that, it was old old," said Bill Mann. director of communications for the Sheriff's Office. "You had to work on different towers to talk to different areas of the county. Some guys working on the northern part of the county couldn't hear what they were doing on the southern end of the county."

Now - it's much different.

"Everybody can hear what everybody is doing, no matter if it's police, fire or EMS," Mann said.

"If you look at any major incident, the first thing that comes up, that caused a problem, is the lack of communication," said Sheriff Tom Dougherty.

It was a massive undertaking that included building new towers,and switching out old equipment like hundreds of thousands of radios in every car and every ambulance, as well as those carried by every deputy, EMS employee and firefighter. It also included equipping the new 911 center.

The 911 center is working out of a space in Mount Morris temporarily while the primary center in Geneseo is getting an upgrade and all its new equipment.

Livingston County officials say these upgrades are just the beginning; one step in its move to Next Generation 911. Those are the most technologically-advanced systems that could, for example, help better pinpoint cell phone callers or one day use livestreaming video from witnesses at a scene to better prepare responding officers and EMTs on their way.

All of that, though, takes money. Citizens pay public safety surcharges when they pay their cell phone bills, but Dougherty says that money doesn't always come back to the state's 911 centers, or Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs). Reports estimate that it'll cost $22 billion over the next 10 years to get them all equipped with the latest technology.

"That is a lot of money to play catch up to get our PSAPs statewide where they need to be," Dougherty said. "That 911 surcharge money, in my opinion, should all come back to the PSAPs and right now, it's a portion of it."

That money will always play a crucial part moving forward in a world where today's latest technology is tomorrow's thing of the past.