Four Texas Towns Consolidate 911 Dispatch in CyrusOne Data Center

CyrusOne will house what it says will be the first ever colocated 911 dispatch center. Dispatch centers for Texas cities of Carrollton, Coppell, Farmers Branch and Addison will share 12,000 square feet of the provider's Carrollton facility. Carrollton is just outside of Dallas.

The communities are consolidating 911 services from the North Texas Emergency Communications Center (NTECC). The consolidation is expected to reduce costs for 911 services while maintaining strict uptime. The project is expected to be complete by early 2015.

There’s very little that is more mission critical than 911 dispatch. Prior to this, dispatch centers would buy a facility and retrofit it according to their specifications. ““CyrusOne offers us a facility that would have taken us years to build,” said Gary Greer, NTECC board president.

It is a win not only for CyrusOne but for outsourcing in general. It validates that colocation is a viable alternative to in-house for one of the most important functions in the country.

CyrusOne will house call center workstations and meeting rooms and provide a technology space. 911 dispatch gains peace of mind that infrastructure will remain up and on highly reliable electrical and mechanical systems.

“Essentially, the dispatch center will operate within our Carrollton data center environment,” said Dottie Spruce, executive vice president of sales at CyrusOne. “The recent consolidation will allow the cities to be much more efficient, improving response times and no doubt saving lives. We’re thrilled to work with the NTECC, and we hope to serve as a model to other dispatch centers across the country.”

NTECC board president Greer said consolidation would improve the service and cut cost at the same time. “The closest unit available will now be able to respond to the scene of a crime or accident, no matter the jurisdiction, saving precious time. We won’t have instances where someone needing assistance would have to wait for a unit in their jurisdiction that could actually be further away because they sit right on a city line.”

CyrusOne has been expanding at rapid pace across its footprint, particularly in Texas. The company landed another blockbuster in Carrollton earlier this year. Wikimedia Foundation chose Carrollton to house infrastructure for one of the world's busiest sites, Wikipedia.