The State 911 Committee announced on Friday the creation of a task force to investigate the root causes behind last month’s dispatch outages across Michigan.
The task force also plans to evaluate the technological upgrades the Peninsula Fiber Network (PFN), the company that owns and operates the statewide system, is pledging to correct the error from happening again.
Shortly after temporary dispatch outages on Jan. 10, which stretched sporadically among counties as far south as Calhoun County near the Ohio border to as far north as Delta County in the upper peninsula, PFN said it’s investing $6 million in upgrades that will result in “a brand-new network,” said PFN’s General Manager Scott Randall during a phone call with WCMU. “The new technology that we're deploying should eliminate this type of outage possibility from our future.”
At the conclusion of an internal investigation of the outages, PFN officials determined the error is linked to a technician while they were conducting routine maintenance.
“An individual bumped into something, if you will,” said Randall. “His actions had somehow impacted the fiber network and it caused a data storm. And that storm then spread throughout some of the network.”
Nearly every day throughout Michigan, network errors and unexpected events impact 911 dispatch offices, ranging from a car crashing into a pole to a construction project digging in the wrong place. According to Randall, the system is built to correct itself when these types of events occur and mostly go unnoticed by the public and dispatch centers. And on Jan. 10, the network’s data storm “should have failed over to its backup route and it did not do that,” said Randall.
Whenever there are discrepancies between dispatch centers and service providers, or interruptions to the state’s network, the State 911 Committee has the authority establish a task force to investigate the issues and present its findings to the full committee, comprised of 21 members from local public safety associations, private-industry leaders and state services.
Jeff Troyer, chair of the State 911 Committee and executive director of the Kalamazoo County Consolidated Dispatch Authority, told WCMU “the primary goal of the task force is to evaluate and investigate the network interruptions that have recently occurred.”
Since Jan. 10, WCMU has been in contact with over 30 county dispatch offices across Michigan. Many declined our request for comment on their communications with PFN or said they don’t have enough information to make a conclusion about the root cause of the outages or upgrades PFN has pledged for the system.
Jeff Satkowski, executive director of 911 dispatch services and emergency manager of Lapeer County previously told WCMU that his communication with PFN has been good throughout the entire process. “Top notch” was how Renee Szymanski, director of Presque Isle County Central Dispatch, described PFN’s service since the temporary outage.
In early February, PFN hosted a statewide meeting with county dispatch directors. Randall said there were some “very honest and frank questions” asked by county officials during the meeting. “It's been a tough event for all of us to share together,” said Randall. “And I think we answered them, honestly…I think they were just looking for clarity on what caused the event and what our solutions are going to offer.”
And part of the clarity issue for Jason Torrey, head of Grand Traverse County Central Dispatch and one of the counties impacted by the Jan. 10 outage, is rooted in the technical sophistication of the statewide 911 system. Torrey said without having a technical understanding of how the networks are designed has not made him feel “super comfortable” about the upgrades coming to the system.
“I don't think anybody without that experience can have 100% confidence that what they're saying is 100% accurate, or what they plan to do to fix it is 100% accurate,” said Torrey.
Troyer has appointed members from the State 911 Committee to the task force, including Vice Chair Jordyn Sellek, Emerging Technology Subcommittee Vice Chair Patricia Coates, Michigan Public Service Commission representative Wendy Thelen and State 911 Administrator Joni Harvey.
