By Brenna R. Kelly
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FLORENCE - A 911 call from a cell phone usually leaves dispatchers with a blank screen. No phone number, no address, nothing.

But now Boone County dispatchers are able to see a caller's location and phone number and get help to them.

Thanks to new technology, dispatchers in the Public Safety Communications Center can pinpoint a caller's location on a map, if the cell phone caller's carrier has the new technology.

The center is the first in Greater Cincinnati to have this capability, said director Ron Porter.

By December 2005, all wireless carriers are required to have the technology, according to Federal Communications Commission rules.

By January, 2006, all 911 dispatch centers must have the technology, called Wireless Phase II.

The Boone dispatch center received a $55,000 grant from the Public Safety Foundation of America to put the technology into action.

"Today many people are choosing not to have a wire line phone," Porter said. "It's more important to have this technology now."

Of the 18,000 calls that come into the center every month, 25 percent are from cell phones, Porter said.

The dispatcher can also track a caller, if the caller is moving - for instance, someone being kidnapped. The dispatcher can track the caller as long as the line is connected.

So far, Cingular and Cincinnati Bell/AT&T mobile-phone carriers are on the system.

The center plans to test the system with Verizon today. Three other carriers, Sprint, T-Mobile and Nextel, are still working with the center.

E-mail bkelly@enquirer.com