Fatal Failure Halts Installation of 911 Caller-ID System

By David Abel, Globe Staff | May 25, 2005

A Hopkinton mother who lived about three blocks from a fire station died last week after a glitch in a new 911 caller-identification system that is being installed statewide failed to find her home, state officials and local police said yesterday.

The death of the 49-year-old woman who dialed 911 and then apparently stopped breathing, officials said, has led the Massachusetts Statewide Emergency Telecommunications Board to suspend all planned installations of the 911 equipment. Board officials said similar problems have been found in other communities with the system.

Verizon has a state contract to install the Vesta equipment, which is designed to allow 911 operators to better locate cellphone callers, in every community throughout the state at a cost of about $75 million, said Paul J. Fahey, executive director of the state's telecommunications board. So far, he said, 16 communities in Massachusetts have received the system since installations began last fall. Hopkinton was the third.

State officials are working with Verizon to determine why the system failed, Fahey said, and the phone company has supplied 911 operators with ways to trace future calls that cannot be located.

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