By Darran Simon; The Philadelphia Inquirer

Camden County residents will soon be able to contact the county’s 9-1-1 call center by text message.

County officials said that by December, texting a three-digit code plus 9-1-1 will be an interim way to request emergency services until May, the date the nation’s four major wireless carriers have agreed to start offering a text-to-9-1-1 service to call centers equipped to handle the technology.

A $1 million upgrade of the county’s 9-1-1 system will enable the county to offer the service in the interim, and permanently after May. The improved system will also be able to accept pictures and video, once cell carriers make the technology available.

The three-digit code will be announced later to avoid premature text messages for emergency help, though it will not be immediately operational for T-Mobile, James Jankowski, the county public safety department’s chief of communications, said last week.

Jankowski likened using the three-digit code along with 9-1-1 to text the county call center to texting votes for performers on American Idol.

“It opens up a whole new world for us to be able to get calls faster and get help faster to someone,” Jankowski said. “Ultimately that’s the mission that we have every day,” he said.

Jankowski said Camden County’s 9-1-1 call center, in Lindenwold, is the only one in New Jersey that will be able to receive text messages, at least until May.

Fewer than 1 percent of the nation’s more than 6,000 emergency call centers currently offer the text-to-9-1-1 service, said Trey Forgety, director of government affairs for the 9-1-1 Association, an Alexandria, Va.- based nonprofit dedicated to improving the availability and quality of 9-1-1 services.

Jankowski said Camden County has purchased the three-digit code and is leasing a fiber-optic line to offer the interim system.

But by May 15, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have agreed to offer text-to-9-1-1 service, the Federal Communications Commission said in December.

In the meantime, according to the FCC, the four carriers have begun to send bounce-back messages to those who try to text 9-1-1 in areas where the service is not available.

Forgety and Camden officials said calling 9-1-1 is always best because it enables dispatchers to hear background sounds to help pinpoint a caller’s location.

County officials said texting 9-1-1 could be safer in some instances, such as domestic situations, or easier for those with hearing and speech difficulties.

Jankowski said the service would also be helpful when non-English-speakers may be able to text an address to dispatchers faster than trying to say the location in English or using the county’s translator service.

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