LETA update highlights Estes Park fiber ring, backup alerts and radio console upgrades

Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority has completed a fiber ring to Estes Park, put a backup emergency alerting system in place and nearly finished a regional radio console upgrade, Commissioner John Kefalas told Larimer County commissioners Tuesday in a 911 system update focused on resiliency. Kefalas also pointed to expanding video and language tools for 911 calls, proposed Starlink-backed call routing and emerging direct-to-cell satellite service as major issues shaping emergency communications.

Kefalas said LETA has now gone live on a complete ring connection to Estes Park, ending what he described as an 11-year effort to eliminate a single point of failure between Loveland and the mountain town. He said fires, flooding and other damage had repeatedly threatened that route, at times isolating Estes Park. Through partnerships with the Colorado Department of Transportation, Trailblazer Broadband and NextLight, he said, LETA can now route service around an outage and also offer the connection to other government partners.

Chair Jody Shadduck-McNally called completion of the project a major relief, saying county officials had been especially concerned after the Cameron Peak Fire about the possibility of 911 service being cut off to Estes Park. Commissioner Kristin Stephens praised the focus on redundancy, saying the public often does not see the work being done behind the scenes to keep emergency systems operating during outages or cyber incidents.

Kefalas also described tools already in use in Larimer and Jackson counties' 911 centers, including live video, photo sharing and automatic language translation. Callers can choose to accept a texted link that lets dispatchers view a scene in real time and share that information with responders, he said. He said the system can automatically detect a caller's language settings and translate text exchanges, and that voice translation and transcription features have expanded as well.

On the radio side, Kefalas said LETA took over infrastructure, funding and replacement planning for regional dispatch consoles and used an intergovernmental agreement with Larimer County to support the upgrade. He said all but Fort Collins had already been upgraded. The presentation materials described the purchase as 70 new radio consoles supported through the county's radio team, a regional approach LETA said reduced costs and standardized equipment and support across dispatch centers.

Kefalas said a ransomware attack on a neighboring jurisdiction's emergency alert platform pushed LETA to create a fully separate backup alerting system, which went live April 1. When Everbridge, LETA's main alert platform, was knocked offline for 12 hours by a denial-of-service attack on June 26, he said the backup system was already active. He said LETA plans to present that model to the state Homeland Security office and is talking with FEMA about encouraging other alerting authorities to build fully redundant systems.

Looking ahead, Kefalas said CenturyLink has proposed using Starlink connections at public safety answering points as an alternate path for 911 calls when terrestrial networks fail, a plan LETA is reviewing because of its operational and financial implications. He also said direct-to-cell satellite service from major wireless carriers could eventually help close coverage gaps in places such as Glen Haven, Red Feather Lakes and Crystal Lakes, though questions remain about routing 911 calls, location accuracy and whether emergency alerts can be delivered over satellite links. On cybersecurity, he said LETA reevaluated all of its protections in 2025 and implemented a security operations center, while federal officials continue warning that current defenses are not enough.