LakeComm officials say a “hardware malfunction” is to blame for an hour-long 911 phone outage Thursday afternoon at Lake County’s newest and largest dispatch center that also likely caused Waukegan’s 911 Center to have an outage.
The Lake Consolidated Emergency Communications Center (LakeComm), located inside the Regional Operations and Communications Facility in Libertyville, began experiencing a 911 outage at around 3:40 p.m. on Thursday.
911 emergency and non-emergency calls into LakeComm were affected.
The outage lasted until around 4:30 p.m., but it appears LakeComm continued to have intermittent issues until around 5 p.m.
The Northwest Central Dispatch System (NWCDS) in Arlington Heights and the Glenview Public Safety Dispatch Center (GPSDC) handled 911 calls from much of Lake County during the outage.
NWCDS and GPSDC notified LakeComm dispatchers of emergency calls over the radio on the Interagency Fire Emergency Radio Network (IFERN) and other radio talk groups, allowing LakeComm to dispatch first responders to calls, albeit at a delay.
The Waukegan 911 Dispatch Center – which dispatches for Waukegan Police and Fire, Park City Police, Tower Lakes Police, and Winthrop Harbor Police and Fire – also experienced a 911 outage at the same time that LakeComm did, Lake & McHenry County Scanner has learned.
LakeComm Executive Director Jason Kern told Lake & McHenry County Scanner that their 911 equipment “had a malfunction,” which caused issues with incoming calls.
Kern said that some incoming 911 calls were still being delivered to LakeComm, but that the malfunction caused audio issues, so calls were rerouted to NWCDS and GPSDC, which are LakeComm’s two backup dispatch centers.
Kern was unable to go into specifics on what he called a “hardware malfunction,” but said the manufacturer of the hardware is Solacom.
Solacom is a company that offers public safety call management solutions to 911 centers across the country, like “Guardian 9-1-1 Call Handling,” according to their website.
Staff at LakeComm worked with Solacom to resolve the malfunction, Kern added.
Lake & McHenry County Scanner has learned from sources that the malfunction at LakeComm likely also caused the phone outage at the Waukegan 911 Dispatch Center.
Kern did not definitively say if the malfunction at LakeComm caused the outage at the Waukegan 911 Dispatch Center, but he did say that Waukegan and other dispatch centers share the same phone system as LakeComm.
Lake & McHenry County Scanner has reached out to officials at the Waukegan 911 Dispatch Center for information on their outage, but we have not yet heard back.
It appears all other dispatch centers in Lake County and the surrounding area – like the Deerfield Police Department Communications Center – did not experience a phone outage.
LakeComm began fully operating in November 2025 when seven dispatch centers in the county consolidated into LakeComm.
In total, LakeComm provides police and fire/rescue dispatching for 30 agencies in the county.
Much of Lake County is covered by LakeComm, although some municipalities – like Waukegan – use other dispatch centers.
Lake & McHenry County Scanner reached out to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, which has its own dispatch center separate from LakeComm.
“The Lake County Joint Emergency Telephone System Board (JETSB) oversees 911 operations in much of Lake County and directed that all sheriff’s 911 calls be routed first to LakeComm when the consolidated center opened,” Lake County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli said.
“Because of that routing structure, any disruption at LakeComm can affect multiple agencies downstream,” Covelli said.
Covelli said the sheriff’s office is still waiting for an explanation from Lake County JETSB about what exactly happened with Thursday’s 911 outage and how it could be prevented in the future.
“Ensuring uninterrupted access to 911 is critical, and any failure in that system warrants careful review,” Covelli added.