Company Delays 911 Cost Proposal Plan Is Expected To Lower Costs For System With Multiple Answering Stations

September 12, 1986|By Ramsey Campbell of The Sentinel Staff

TAVARES — The announcement of a cost proposal from General Telephone & Electric for the county's planned 911 emergency answering system has been delayed until Oct. 9.

Lake County Emergency Services Director Joe Stephany said the company had planned to have the cost estimate this month, but reached an agreement with the county to delay it until next month.

The county has been working on plans for the 911 emergency answering system for more than a year. The system would allow residents to dial the three-digit number for emergency ambulance, police and fire calls. The machinery would automatically identify the location of the caller.

A countywide addressing system is being prepared so it can be incorporated in the 911 telphone computers.

The plan ran into a snag this summer when city and county officials disagreed on how many answering stations would be included. The county wants a single answering center while some cities prefer to answer and route their own 911 emergency calls.

Additional answering centers would increase the cost of the system under a proposal submitted by United Telephone. The cost was estimated at about $253,000 in initial equipment and operation costs of $19,000 a month for a single answering point.

Adding at least six answering points raised the initial cost to $511,000 and escalated the operating costs to $28,000 a month.

The GTE proposal, however, is expected to lower the costs considerably by using the county's existing computer capacity rather than renting a telephone computer base near Fort Lauderdale.

''It may be low enough to do everything the cities want,'' said Stephany.

GTE officials and Stephany met with city managers Thursday to talk over the 911 plan and Stephany said he thinks there is growing flexibility on both sides.

''Everyone's a little more educated now,'' he said, ''and there are alternatives to consider.''