Cass County 9-1-1 Director Rob Koppert reports cellular 9-1-1 service to the County has been restored, as of 3-p.m. today (Saturday). Some areas saw service restored by mid-day. In Shelby County, cellular 9-1-1 was restored between 1-and 2-p.m. The service had been down since about 6:30-p.m. Friday, and wireless phone users had been asked to call their local law enforcement agency instead of dialing 911. Those who called 9-1-1 using their cell phone, ended-up getting an Iowa State Patrol call center somewhere else in the state, which could have slowed response time based on unfamiliarity with the area the call was placed from.

The Des Moines Register reports the problem was blamed on a faulty piece of equipment on the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), the state-owned fiber-optic system. David Lingren, the network’s executive director, told the paper that a vendor working with the state tried to fix the problem by installing a new piece of software. That patch somehow made the problem worse, and the system failed to switch over to a backup system as it was supposed to.

Lingren’s agency worked all night on the issue, and by early Saturday afternoon, he said the network was working properly again. He said state officials would study what happened and look for ways to prevent such a problem from recurring with the 911 system. Stefanie Bond, a spokeswoman for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said she was unaware of Iowans having major difficulty gaining assistance in emergencies because of the glitch.