ROSEBUD — Gasconade County on Thursday became the first Missouri county E-911 system to transition into the emergency services IP network ESInet. Caleb Tucker with A&W Communications, Inc., of Eolia, Mo,. converted the county’s system which previously used copper transmission capabilities with fiber services.

“All 911 calls in Gasconade County are now geospacially routed,” said Tucker, adding this makes for “more accuracy” in locating those seeking emergency services.

Missouri is the next state to be switched over to the new routing system. AT&T has converted dispatching centers across Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, and most of Illinois to the ESInet. A&W Communications services public safety communications systems across the region, said Tucker. Eight calls centers in southwest Missouri are scheduled to be “cut over” to the new system in the next couple of months.

Joining Tucker during the testing was Justin Vaughn, the 911 area manager for AT&T. He had been making test calls from the Rosebud General Store. After several calls were routed to a call station in North Carolina, then some additional calls to nearby Warren County, the proper routing sequence was clarified and calls were being received in the Rosebud facility.

Several dispatchers had friends and family calling in tests throughout the morning to verify calls made from the different cell phone service providers used in the region were reaching the E-911 center in Rosebud. Test calls from landline telephones were also made throughout the installation process.

By about 9:40 a.m., two of the call taker’s work stations were “hooked up.” By noon, all four stations were receiving properly routed calls.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces upstream to route these calls here,” said Tucker. “We did a lot prep testing for this.”

“ESInet is a national IP network,” said Vaughn. “Gasconade County is the first Missouri county to transition off the legacy 911 net onto the Next Gen 911 AT&T nationwide ESInet.”