EMA waiting on Frontier to upgrade 9-1-1 system.

NORWALK — The Huron County Emergency Management Agency signed a contract with Frontier Communications to upgrade the bandwidth and internet speed at Huron County dispatch sites last December. The agency is still waiting for those upgrades eight months later. The last remaining snag is the upgrade at the Norwalk Police Department. EMA coordinator Tacy Bond said Frontier still has to run lines from an outdoor telephone pole and into the building. They've been stuck on that step for three months. That's a problem for Bond, who is overseeing three major projects related to a state grant that is helping pay for upgrades to the county's 9-1-1 system. Bond plans to finish upgrades on 9-1-1 technology, radios and call recorders this year. But those projects can't begin at any sight until Norwalk's internet upgrade is finished. "They're all tied together," Bond said. "Basically, the other sites are kind of sitting and waiting and we can't test the new circuits that are being installed until this Norwalk (project) is final." Bond started planning for 9-1-1 upgrades when she bought a new central computer server around two years ago. In February 2019, she contacted Frontier about upgrading the county's internet. Those talks lasted until December, which gave Bond her first clue into the road ahead. "Those talks were kind of a nightmare, too," She said. "It's been slow all the way through." Bond said she initially thought the internet upgrade projects would take between two and three months. When Frontier filed for bankruptcy in April, it told Bond she wouldn't notice any difference in their progress. Since then, Frontier has provided a variety of reasons for its slow progress, most of them related to COVID-19. "Of course, you don't know if that's the case," Bond said. "A lot of people are using COVID as an excuse for delayed processes." Once the equipment does get installed, Huron County dispatch sites will reap the benefits. Residents will be able to send and receive texts to 9-1-1, which will help people in dangerous situations contact police quietly and save officers from attending to accidental calls. The 9-1-1 recording system will be upgraded for the first time in 10 years. Courts will have the option to use re-created 9-1-1 calls from those recordings. The 9-1-1 grant will also upgrade the county's radio system. The new system will include five towers instead of two and a better backup system. The problem is, Bond and the EMA are still waiting on the Norwalk project. She can't change internet providers because of state rules, either. "It's just the idea of we wanted this done a long time ago and obviously it's out of our hands," Bond said. "We're just sitting here waiting for them to get it done." Bond said she hopes that will be complete by the first week of August. And if that happens, the 9-1-1 upgrades should be done by October. But she's planning on November, just in case. "I'm pushing it out a month just because things never go as planned," Bond said.