Letter: Limited Cell Service Jeopardizes 911 Response

The Town of New Canaan Utilities Commission has scheduled a public meeting for May 9, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wagner Room of the New Canaan High School.

The purpose of this meeting to apprise the residents of New Canaan about the current status of our wireless improvement initiative, and to invite residents to ask questions about what the Utilities Commission has planned as we strive for better and faster cell coverage. No question will go unanswered.

One of the points of emphasis will be to highlight the safety issues we believe exist because too many 911 emergency calls fail. Parts of New Canaan have little or no coverage—especially in the northern part of town. 

The area media has often written about examples of missed 911 calls, including the family who's home caught fire during Storm Sandy and had to drive miles before they could get a cell signal and call the fire department. When the firemen arrived, the roof of the home had been destroyed. That same storm found a Town worker trapped in his truck by live power lines. He called 911 but his call also failed and he was only rescued when other town workers saw the problem and called CL&P who turned off the power.

Other examples of missed 911 calls involve residents who have been involved in car-related accidents. Nice people stopped at the accident scenes and dialed 911 on their cell phones. In several cases the 911 calls were answered but by emergency sites outside of New Canaan and messages had to be relayed back to the New Canaan 911 call center to initiate a response. Two of these accidents resulted in deaths. We ask could it have made a difference if the calls had been directly received by NC 911? We'll never know. Precious time was lost.

Interestingly where we have weak or poor cell coverage, our town police and fire departments report they also have poor radio coverage. Any new cell tower will have the option of having both police and fire radio antennas installed on the same tower.

In reviewing the Town Cell Phone Survey results, we see many references by residents who have also experienced missed 911 calls. One missed 911 call is too many!

The Commission believes that no one should be denied the ability to reach emergency personnel in our Town if their power has been cut or if they are in their car, at home or on the street and need help. This is why the Town has emergency 911 service but to be effective during all kinds of situations, our wireless phone system also needs to work reliably. Our long range goal is to raise our coverage reliability from about 25 percent today, up into the 80 percent-plus range. Why is our coverage poor in many areas? Because our 22-square-mile town has a topography of many ridges and valleys and cell signals don't do well over this kind of terrain. Yes we will need more cell towers!

Neither the Town nor the Utilities Commission select new cell tower sites. This decision is made by the major cell providers who use RF mapping techniques to add a new tower which they know will help to fill in the coverage holes. It's no secret that we are running out of new siting choices. The cell providers are always open to hearing from residents who may have a new tower site recommendation. All new possible sites brought to our attention are evaluated.

The meeting format on May 9th will be straight forward. UC Commissioner Dan Welch will open the meeting, introduce people from the Town government, reps from major cell providers, hopefully a representative from the CT Siting Council, Jim Lisher the Town Health & Human Resources Commissioner will discuss the Town wireless Senior Home Health Care monitoring program plus other members of the Commission. Then the meeting will be opened to questions from the floor. We are describing this meeting as a good old-fashioned information exchange.

Please join us on May 9th at 7:30 pm and come prepared to ask your own questions. Thanks for your support. 

Geoffrey Pickard

Member, Town of New Canaan Utilities Commission

uc.geoffreypickard@gmail.com