City PD experiences phone issues Sunday, 911 not effected

An aging 911 software is attributed to the loss of the administrative phone lines Sunday at the Poplar Bluff Police Department. The department’s 911 services were never effected.

“We started experiencing problems (Sunday) after (1 p.m.),” said Lt. Keith Hefner. “We received calls only (and) were unable to make outgoing calls.

“Eventually, we were unable to receive or make calls, so we started using our back-up cellphone.”

Because of the sporadic service, Hefner said, a public-service announcement was put out with the back-up number, and the Butler County Sheriff’s Department was notified and could reach officers directly by radio.

“Repair technicians from both AT&T and Big River Telephone responded, and as of 8 a.m. (Monday), everything was back in full service,” Hefner said.

The issues, he said, are going to be “attributed to the aging 911 software, which we are in the process of trying to replace. Our current system is way past end of life.”

The department, Hefner said, has “no (tech) support for it,” but AT&T has the maintenance and service contract and has to “come out and restart it more than they should because of its age.”

Hefner said the system has so many moving parts.

The copper phone lines, he said, come into an operations center, then go out by fiber optic cable to the police department, fire department and communications center.

“We restarted it at the network operations center (Sunday), but still had problems at the com center,” Hefner said. “AT&T came back and restarted the service down there.”

The department, Hefner said, still is going through the grant process for new 911 software, but “it looks promising for partial grant funding.”

Officials, Hefner said, are reviewing “demos right now” to determine what system would be best for the department. Council approval, he said, will be needed.