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A major upgrade to the borough's Enhanced 911 System set to go into operation Thursday is expected to provide additional reliability and quicker response for residents in emergencies, according to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management.

The upgrade consists of a new router, a $511,000 piece of equipment authorized by the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly by emergency ordinance in March.

A rack of servers and switches at the Soldotna emergency 911 dispatch center will be mirrored by a duplicate version at the Kenai Prism Training Center, providing redundancy against failure, Scott Walden, borough emergency management coordinator, said in an interview Monday.

Such "geographic diversity" and multiple entry points for carrier interconnection will allow all four dispatch centers with the borough to receive their 911 calls for assistance. The old system was not sophisticated enough to immediately route calls to the appropriate zones without going through the Soldotna center personnel.

While the Office of Emergency Management hopes no problems arise when the system switches over, glitches are possible, and emergency officials are advising that the ability to call 911 is dependent on the local phone company's configuration and capabilities.

Four companies currently operate within the borough, including Alaska Communications Systems, General Communications Inc., TelAlaska/Interior Telephone and Matanuska Telephone Association. All have been working on issues associated with the transition, the Office of Emergency Management said.

"The phone companies have been doing their part," Walden said.

In a press release, issued on Friday, announcing the switch, the Office of Emergency Management said that people experiencing technical problems when dialing 911 on or after Thursday should report the problem to the phone company by calling 911. In the event of a 911-call failure, people should dial 907-262-4453. That number also is printed in the front of phone books.

The borough's four dispatch centers, located in Soldotna, Kenai, Seward and Homer, will have additional staffing Thursday to help with transition activities. For the first 24 hours, both the old and new routers will be operating while any problems are fixed, Walden said.

Test calls will be made from all communities and the borough will call some phone customers and ask that they place a test call. No one should place a test call unless specifically asked. There will be no interruption of emergency call-taking services caused by the test calls. Enhanced 911 dispatchers will answer real emergency calls.

Walden said preparation for the system upgrade has been ongoing for about 18 months. Earlier this year, the Office of Emergency Management anticipated starting the switch in September. However, the rate of failure of the old router necessitated accelerating the schedule to this spring, Walden said.

For more information, call Scott Walden, emergency management coordinator, at 907-262-4910.