North Dakota is ahead of the curve in its ability to locate people who use cell phones to call 911, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The report, released earlier this month, detailed each state's ability to locate callers at two levels of technology - Phase I and Phase II. At the Phase I level, dispatchers can tell what cellular service tower the caller is using. In urban areas, that might narrow the location down to a few square blocks, but in rural areas a tower might serve an entire county. Phase II technology gives the call's origin within a few hundred yards and often comes within a few dozen yards.

About half the states have widespread Phase I technology, but only 10 have full Phase II technology. North Dakota is one of those 10 and one of just three states west of the Mississippi River that has Phase II capabilities at every site to which emergency calls are routed.

"It's been great how it has come together," said Russ Lindblom, wireless 911 project manager for the North Dakota Association of Counties. "The call centers were good about getting updated, and (the cell phone companies) were very good about working with us."

The technology has the potential to save lives. For years, 911 call centers have had the ability to automatically find the origin of calls on land lines, but, until recently, they had to rely on the caller to give them an address if the call came by cell phone. If the caller didn't know exactly where he was, gave poor directions, or was physically unable to communicate, dispatchers didn't know where to send help. One such case in Morton County involved a woman who had been stung by bees, to which she was highly allergic. She called 911 on her cell phone, but her throat had swollen so badly that she could hardly speak. By the time paramedics found her, it was too late.

There are now more cell phones than land lines in North Dakota, and most 911 calls come from cell phones, Lindblom said.

So far, the upgrade has cost about $4 million, not including the costs incurred by individual call centers, Lindblom said. Most of that money comes from the $1 per month fee tacked on to cell phone bills. With continued revisions and improvements to the system, the final cost is likely to exceed the original budget of $7 million, Lindblom said. Still, he considers it a small price to pay.

"It aids in saving lives and property,"he said. "If you're in a situation where responders can get there faster, how can you put a price on that?"

Since Phase II was introduced early last year, Burleigh County hasn't had a situation in which it made a clear life-or-death difference, though it has saved valuable time in some less-critical situations, said county communications manager Mike Dannenfelzer. It has made an impact elsewhere in the state, too.

Jason Schatzke was snowmobiling outside Fargo in January 2005 with several friends. It was the morning after a big snowfall, and they couldn't resist doing some exploring, Schatzke said.

"In hindsight, we should have stuck to the trails, but it was such a beautiful day,"he said.

One of his friends hit the shoulder of a road that had been hidden by snow and was launched into the air. He landed so hard it crushed vertebrae in his spine.

Schatzke called 911 on his cell phone, but he didn't know his exact location. Fortunately, the call center had Phase II capabilities, and the dispatcher was able to locate the group and get an ambulance there quickly.

Phase II technology does have limitations, though. The system can operate in two ways: using the global positioning system to locate the digital chip in a caller's phone, or by triangulating their position with multiple cell phone towers. In North Dakota, the GPS system is the more commonly used method, Lindblom said. GPS can work in areas with only one cell tower and is very precise, but it can take a couple of minutes for satellites to locate the caller, and it might not work at all in buildings or during cloudy weather. Also, older cell phones that operate on the analog system don't have the digital chip required for the system to work.

North Dakota is unusual because the technology is especially lacking in most states with low population densities.

In Montana, for example, only 2 percent of counties have Phase II, and in South Dakota 6 percent of counties have it, according to the report.

"Everybody worked together, and we just did it," Lindblom said. "It's been a fun job because it's important."

(Reporter Zach Franz can be reached at 250-8261 or Zach.Franz@;bismarcktribune.com.)