Cell phone users calling Centre County 911 may soon be able to call in an emergency without having to know their exact location.

This spring, Centre County 911 will be upgraded with new technology that allows the emergency center to identify the exact location and identity of the cell phone caller.

"As of now, the call is routed to the nearest cell phone tower with the best signal," Centre County 911 Communications Director Dan Tancibok said. "We have no way of identifying the caller's exact location, and often the caller cannot tell us where they are."

Tancibok said the current system does not give the department a callback number.

The update will give the operator the phone number of the cell phone as well as the latitude and longitude of the caller's location.

Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) spokesman Justin Fleming said each county in Pennsylvania is required to submit a 911 wireless plan.

"It is an issue of public safety, and the [Federal Communications Commission] is making a push for counties to do this," he said.

Andrew Becker, news and communications director at the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, said the lack of technology is particularly an issue in a place like Centre County, where there are many college students who use only cell phones.

"High-use cell phone areas especially need to get this wireless plan squared away," he said.

Fleming said the requirement is not a new piece of legislation, but after Gov. Ed Rendell took office, the wireless upgrade was made a major priority for PEMA.

The money for the program, Fleming said, comes from a $1 monthly surcharge that all Pennsylvania cell phone holders must pay.

"Counties submit a plan, and some decide to wait until they receive the funding," Fleming said. "Others go ahead with the upgrade prior to the money becoming available."

Tancibok said Centre County applied about a year ago for the funding and recently received about $280,000 from PEMA to pay for the upgrades.

"We've done our part of updating the systems; the rest is not in our control," he said.

Tancibok said the department has contacted cell phone companies, who are currently making their own changes to their system to make everything run smoothly.

"The time element is out of our control," he said. "My target for the completion is March, but that's optimistic."

Becker said more than 162 million cellular phones are in use in America today, and there are more than 200,000 wireless calls placed to 911 each day nationwide.

"This growth in wireless use has caused a gap in the performance of technology because the entire infrastructure was established for wire-line calls, not wireless," he said.

Fleming said that when the wireless plan is enacted this spring, the program will be nothing but positive for Centre County citizens.

"Seconds can make a major difference," he said. "The faster, the better when trying to save a life."