Board discusses VoIP system

THOMPSON FALLS – The Sanders County 9-1-1 Advisory Board put an emphasis on emergency communications within Sanders County during their latest meeting in Thompson Falls.

The committee, consisting of law enforcement members, emergency response officials, and members of local government, discussed the possibility of looking into establishing an Internet based system for communications in Sanders County.

“It’s something where our costs would hopefully be reduced and we would have a lot more functionality,” Cody Best, Sanders County Sheriff’s Office radio technician, said.

The proposed system, a Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), allows for the delivery of voice communications, text messages and multimedia communication through an IP network.

The VoIP system can run through a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) giving emergency services and law enforcement an advanced capability in regards to communication throughout the county.

“This technology opens up a whole new world for the county,” Randy Woods, mayor of Hot Springs and president of the 9-1-1 Advisory Board said.

Over the past years Woods has voiced concerns over the lack of the reliability in the current system employed by the county.

If the communications equipment on Pat’s Knob, currently used as a portion of inter-county communications goes down or experiences technical difficulties it can require a manual fix to get the system back on line.

This type of fix can be an issue during inclement weather, requiring a lot of time to sort out the potential difficulties.  

A VoIP system could allow for much easier fixes, even if it was used as a backup to the current emergency communications system.

“You could pop up a laptop and figure the problem out from home. It would save us a lot of headaches,” Best said. Best added an IP system would be more cost effective than the current communications array.

Instead of periodically replacing out of date equipment with expensive upgrades, the proposed system would be substantially more cost effective.

“We could replace each site at a fraction of the cost,” Best said.

An added benefit of the IP system is in its ability to easily connect portions of the county, which are a large distance away from one another.

A DSL based system would theoretically allow Hot Springs to quickly get in contact with Trout Creek or Thompson Falls to reach Dixon without difficulty.

The potential decreased costs could also allow the county to pursue more equipment enabling even better coverage for some of the remote areas of Sanders County.

“The equipment is cheaper to put in and you can have seven or eight systems throughout the county,” Woods said.

Best added if the county chose to pursue the new communications system it did not mean they should discard their contemporary means of communication.

Working in unison, the two systems could provide a critical back up to one another in case of unforeseen difficulties.

Best suggested using the VoIP system as a back-up system until communities, dispatchers and emergency responders become familiar with the new technology.

“I would like to use it as the primary, but I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Best said.

Plans to overhaul current emergency communications are in their initial stages.

Best, along with Shawna Chenoweth, the detention/dispatch supervisor at the sheriff’s department and secretary of the 9-1-1 Advisory Board, wanted to bring the issue to the board takes further steps were taken.