North Dakota 911 technology connects caller in South Dakota to emergency services in right state

FARGO — Telephone technology in North Dakota is helping emergency dispatchers reroute 911 calls near the South Dakota border to the correct state, according to a group that oversees the program.

Next Generation 911 recently rerouted a call made to the DRN, formerly known as the Dickey Rural Telephone Co., to South Dakota emergency services, according to a release from the North Dakota Association of Counties. DRN is located in Ellendale, North Dakota, about 5 miles north of the South Dakota border, but the person who called was in South Dakota, according to the release.

The association, which oversees Next Generation 911, or NG911, called the achievement a “milestone.” The call routing technology will allow emergency crews to respond more quickly to calls for service, the release said.

“We have struggled considerably with finding cost-effective ways to handle out-of-state originating service providers (OSPs) which have a very small number of wireline subscribers in our state,” said Jason Horning, NG911 program manager in North Dakota. “This deployment demonstrated that it may not be necessary to directly connect out-of-state OSPs to our emergency services network, allowing them to leverage their existing connectivity to the state in which they primarily do business.”

North Dakota has been transitioning to NG911 for a decade, Horning told The Forum. The state enabled the feature to help reroute emergency calls to the correct state in October, he said.

Using geospatial call routing, NG911 can pinpoint a caller’s latitude and longitude location using the person’s cellphone, Horning said.

So far, the technology has only worked with the DRN, Horning said. He said the state has a “little way to go” as it works to further implement NG911 along the North Dakota-South Dakota border.

North Dakota is looking into the deployment of NG911 and documenting “the requirements necessary to make it a repeatable configuration,” the release said.

“There are details we are still working through, but clearly this is possible and may serve as a model for other out-of-state OSPs that we engage in an effort to make sure every North Dakota and South Dakota resident receives the proper PSAP (public safety answering point) on initial delivery,” Horning said in a statement.