By O'Ryan Johnson
The Boston Herald

BOSTON — A state-of-the-art upgrade to the city's 911 system has shut down the emergency service three times in the past week, forcing cops to use a backup system and delaying calls by nearly a minute, police and sources said.

Boston Police Department spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said police are not aware that any calls have been lost or that anyone has been harmed by a delayed call.

The glitches in the city's 911 system come as Verizon workers install state-mandated improvements to the system which, when complete, will point to spots on a map from which emergency calls originate. Driscoll said that while no 911 calls have been lost during the upgrade, because the main system transfers immediately to the backup anytime service goes down, the upgrade will not be complete until mid January. She said police cannot guarantee the shutdown will not happen again during the upgrade period.

``The system is created so it has multiple levels of redundancy and also the system has very effective contingency plans that allow for technical glitches from time to time,'' Driscoll said.

The main system shut down for the first time Wednesday, then again at 2 a.m. Saturday and once more Monday. In each case 911 calls were transferred to the Boston Fire Department's operations on Park Drive. Driscoll said the Monday shutdown was planned. However, due to the volume of calls when the main system goes down, police moved several dispatchers to Park Drive to ease the burden on the Fire Department operations. Driscoll said it was not clear how long each shut down lasted.

A Boston first responder familiar with the shutdowns said that when the backup system kicks in, calls are automatically delayed by 54 seconds, meaning help is that much later in arriving. 

Copyright 2007 Boston Herald Inc.