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History of the E.T.S.B.In the late 1990's the ETSB was formed after voters approved a referendum placing a surcharge on each landline telephone within Jersey County. This surcharge is paid as a portion of each subscriber's monthly telephone bill. In the early 2000's staff was hired to coordinate the design and implementation of the enhanced 9-1-1 system including the readdressing and mapping of structures and the placement of road signs. Employees were also hired and trained in 9-1-1 call-taking and dispatch. It took several years before the enhanced 9-1-1 system was operational. Re-addressing had to be completed and subscriber information from the telephone companies had to be uploaded into the 9-1-1 database. Testing was conducted to ensure accuracy met ICC standard and that equipment was working properly. In May 2008, once ICC standards were met, enhanced 9-1-1 was announced as being available to the citizens in Jersey County. Telecommunicators have several resources available to provide a timely response to an emergency. Those resources include name and telephone number of the caller also referred to as Automatic Number Identification (ANI), physical location of the caller also referred to as Automatic Location Information (ALI) and a very robust mapping system to aid in determining the exact location of the caller. Additionally, the mapping system provides the telecommunicator with responder information to aid them in identifying the appropriate police, ambulance or fire department to notify. In 2010 the ICC authorized the Jersey County ETSB to operate a Wireless 9-1-1 Answering Point and begin receiving wireless 9-1-1 calls originating in Jersey County. In 2015 the ICC approved the ETSB’s modified wireless plan which allowed the answering point in Jersey County to route wireless 9-1-1 calls originating in Calhoun and Greene Counties to those respective counties. Prior to these approvals, wireless 9-1-1 calls were answered by the Illinois State Police. Caller information was then transferred to the counties with no associated ANI / ALI information. The ability to answer these calls directly without going through the Illinois State Police saves a significant amount of time and allows the calls to be received with valuable caller information.
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