Joint Communications resolves 911 system issues
A 911 outage reported Sunday, the second within a week, has been fixed and the issues with the Columbia Boone County Joint Communications 911 system have been resolved, officials said Monday.
Joint Communications officials said they will “continue to monitor the system to ensure the safety of Boone County residents.”
Officials said the outages were not with its equipment. They said it was a problem on CenturyLink’s end, Joint Communications’ service provider.
The possible system outage happened around noon Sunday. Joint Communications was contacted by CenturyLink, which reported there could be a potential network problem.
A few hours later, CenturyLink notified Joint Communications that technicians had found a hardware issue and were working to resolve it.
Officials said the problem affected landline phones in and around the University of Missouri campus.
They said they didn’t notice a disruption in service — and that dispatchers were still receiving 911 calls.
The system also experienced problems last Thursday, when only one of the 14 dedicated lines for emergency calls was working properly. Residents were calling but not getting through to dispatchers.
Officials advise anyone who calls 911 and cannot get through to call 573-442-6131, then press “1” as soon as they hear the automated menu. If they have an emergency, they can also go to the nearest police, fire or EMS facility.
