Earlier this week, T-Mobile engineers traveled to Dallas to investigate a “ghost calling” glitch that it was thought was related to T-Mobile and was resulting in long 911 hold times. Now more information on the situation has come out.

T-Mobile says that abandoned calls, not ghost calls, are to blame for the 911 issue, the City of Dallas announced today. While ghost calls are the result of a person’s phone making multiple calls to 911, abandoned calls happen when the person calling hangs up before speaking to a 911 operator. The 911 call takers would then try to call these people back, but couldn’t reach them in some cases because the people were on hold trying to call 911 again.

To address this issue of abandoned calls, the City of Dallas plans to look into technology upgrades and will add more call takers. Starting this weekend, one dozen additional call takers will on hand each day to help offer improved service.

T-Mobile has made improvements to its network to make the delivery of calls to the 911 service smoother. T-Mo’s engineers that are currently in Dallas will stick around for two weeks to keep an eye out for any issues that may arise. Third-party vendors that help support Dallas’ public safety infrastructure will be on-hand to help out, too.

“T-Mobile committed resources in Dallas until we made progress, and they have kept their promise,” said City Manager T.C. Broadnax. “We want our citizens to know that their safety is our number one priority and they can count on us when they call 911.”

It’s great to hear that T-Mobile and the City of Dallas were able to team up and find the cause of this problem. Having to call 911 for an emergency can be a stressful situation, and that can be made even worse when you have issues actually reaching a call taker. Hopefully the dozen additional call takers and technology upgrades can help improve Dallas’ 911 system.

Sources: WSJ, City of Dallas