DeKALB | The 911 emergency phone service is functioning normally in DeKalb County, as of 8:30 a.m. today.

NIU and DeKalb, Sycamore, Boone, Stephenson and Ogle counties were without a normal operating 911 emergency phone service since Tuesday.

“If someone were to call 911, they would be routed to the appropriate police agency at this point,” said Don Rodman, NIU Commander of Police Operations. “If they call the emergency number, they would speak to one of our dispatchers. It would be the same thing if they for some reason call 911, they would get our dispatcher again based on the proximity of where they are on campus.”

911 was operating correctly, however, it did not provide the caller’s name and address like it should because of an issue with Frontier Communications Corportation’s infrastructure which provides phone services in the area.

The difference between 911 calls and non-emergency calls is the dispatcher will not answer “911, what’s your emergency?” because the call will be routed to the non-emergency service.

“[Campus emergency towers] were not affected by this; they were fully operational,” Rodman said.

The Campus Emergency Towers offer prompt NIU police assistance with the push of a button that goes through a separate system from the 911 system.

“We’re hoping to have [the 911 emergency service] back up and running by the end of [Sept. 21],” Rodman said.