Northern’s capabilities

 At our location, we have multiple 911 trunks and redundant routing to answer your calls.  If any one of them were to fail, the other stations would continue to operate. 

• Multiple T1 trunks to every Bell 911 tandem switch in the province!

• Nortel Option 61 dual redundant CPU core PBX. The most reliable and dependable switch available. Brand new in October 2001 with the latest software enhancements. Over $300,000.00 invested in this switch alone.

• Secondary Mitel Dual bay PBX phone system with full spares on-site

• Back-up phones in the event of a PBX failure

• All telephone trunks are buried for entrance to the building. We operate on multiple fiber strands, T1 ISDN spans, Centrex on dedicated copper and analogue copper trunks

• In the event all physical lines to the building are cut, we have cellular phones available for back up.

• Our systems are monitored 100% of the time by Bell Canada 911 Surveillance Group.

Our staff is trained and competent. We know what to do and have years of experience. All dispatchers pass through background screening and a structured training program.

• Minimum of four (4) dispatchers to eight (8) operators 24 hours per day, everyday depending on call volumes.

• Additional staff available for “overflow”

• Bi-lingual English/French (Although not all dispatchers are bilingual, all shifts have multiple French speaking people available)

• We subscribe to a translation service that provides translation services to 170 other languages

• With three branches and service provided twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, we have about 100 employees.  In the event that a single dispatcher or a number of dispatchers are off due to sickness or accident, we have other staff members, technical personnel and management who are "on-call"

• We have TTY/TTD service for the hearing and speech impaired

In the event that there is difficulty understanding the caller we can instantly replay the call as many times as required in an attempt to determine the problem. We have multiple data terminals displaying the Enhanced 911 data and dual printers to log everything. 

• All calls are recorded in our computerized call recorder

• We archive the calls to a hard drive and a DVD disk

• We keep 911 calls for six (6) years

• We keep Fire and alarm calls for about three months

• Instant Call retrieval is available for all calls

All of these various computer and phone systems operate on battery back-up systems and in the event of a commercial power loss, we are able to run off the batteries for approximately 4 to 6 hours.  In case the power outage is expected to exceed that time, we have an automatic transfer system set up and arrangements are in place to have a natural gas powered generator run the system.       

• The Electrical grid which powers the telephone system and the computer network is provided by Sudbury Hydro and is extremely reliable in our area. (We provide the back-up site for their overflow calls from their operations centre in the event of an electrical problem in the city.)

• Everything critical at our location is on Battery Back up

• In the event that a commercial electrical outage is a long one, we have a Natural Gas Generator on site that is tested on a weekly basis.

 We have centralized our equipment spares and have virtually every part on hand.  All critical components from hard drives, voice-processing cards to entire computer shelves are covered.

• All computer database records are backed up multiple times on a daily basis

• We have dual redundant Novell network servers

• All critical computers have a redundant computer on-site

• In addition to the regular daily back-ups, we also take a tape of all data off-site on a regular basis.

 We do “Disaster Planning” and have procedures and regular training in-place to cover many different situations. 

• We have a Disaster plan for both total telephone line cuts and/or building evacuation to provide service from an alternative site. We keep a full set of information available at our North Bay office and are able to transfer the calls there in the event of a problem in Sudbury.

We understand the critical nature of the service. We are a member of both the Sudbury and the North Bay district Mutual Aid Association and already provide dispatch services for a number of both FIRE departments and FIRST RESPONSE teams in those groups and from many other locations.

In addition to the technical capabilities above, the city has invested heavily in telecommunications and a fibre infrastructure. Sudbury is “wired” and we are connected. I have been told that the communications infrastructure in Sudbury is second to none in Ontario and in some respects North America. Your calls will get through!! 

Send mail to info@northern911.com with questions or comments about this web site.