An upgrade to the county’s 911 service will soon help dispatchers pinpoint the location of people making emergency calls on cell phones.

The project, part of a statewide effort, builds on the current system, which works similarly with landline phones, said Mike Evans, Emergency Services Coordinator for the county.

“Parts of Cochise County have enhanced 911, which gives dispatchers the callers’ information, like who owns the phone, their address and the number they’re calling from,” Evans said. “We’ve had that in different parts of the county for about 20 years.”

The new enhancement, scheduled to be completed April 30, will encompass all of the county.

“What we’re doing now is what is called ‘phase two wireless,’ which will actually give dispatchers a point on a map where the person is calling from, as well as their callback number,” he said.

Unlike the landline system, 911 dispatchers in Cochise County currently do not have access to the phone number of a person calling the service from a cell phone unless it is given to them.

“Unless they actually gave us the callback number, we were never actually able to call them back,” he said. “Now, we will be able to call them back and re-establish contact.”

The biggest improvement for the new wireless enhancement is the mapping ability, which will be particularly useful with callers who do not know exactly where they are, those who call 911 and then become unresponsive or confused due to injury, and lost hikers, he said.

“In the past, we’ve asked callers to tell us what they could see around them, and they would tell us ‘trees and a farm,’ and that doesn’t help us very much,” he said.

The new system would pinpoint the location of an individual “to within several feet.”

The $1.5 million project has been paid for by the Arizona 911 Office, which is funded by the 911 excise tax.

“If you look at your phone bill, whether it’s Alltel, Sprint or whoever, you will notice a 911 excise tax. That is collected by the phone companies and sent to the State of Arizona 911 Office,” Evans said.

As 911 calls are automatically taken by the nearest dispatch center, beginning Wednesday, testers are spending the next few months driving around the county testing the new system for each of the dispatch locations.

Other ways cell phones may be used to help 911 dispatchers in the future include sending pictures or video directly from the scene of an incident. There is also research being done to have personal vehicle concierge services, like OnStar, take and send biometric data to dispatchers and EMS crews in the event of an emergency.

“If we can dispatch an ambulance and say your blood pressure is this and your heart rate is this, those responders can use that information to better respond to your emergency,” Evans said.