AN ENHANCED 911 system could let emergency responders on Oahu locate callers using cell phones beginning this week, more than two years after wireless carriers started charging its customers 66 cents a month to fund the service.

Dubbed e911, the new program was first launched on Maui this summer and is expected to offer full coverage on Kauai and Hawaii counties by the middle of next year, officials estimate. It will allow operators to immediately identify and locate wireless callers -- a technology that could save lives at a time when more than half of about a million 911 calls made in Hawaii each year are dialed from wireless phones.

There are about 900,000 cell phone subscribers in the state, but currently only calls from land lines can be traced, because they are tied to a home or office address. Now operators will rely on signal towers and state-of-the-art mapping technology to retrieve a cell phone's number and narrow down the location of the caller to within 100 meters.

The cell phone fee being used to pay for the improvements began in July 2004, when Gov. Linda Lingle signed into law a bill prompted by an FCC ruling mandating carriers across the country to upgrade their equipment by the end of 2005.

The system's implementation in Hawaii was delayed, however, because the state law requires counties to have the services in place before they can be reimbursed.

"The counties didn't have the money to purchase the equipment and the softwares because it wasn't in the county budget," said Philip Kahue, executive director of the state's e911 board, which is managing more than $14 million in fees collected so far. "We were caught in a Catch-22. We couldn't fund them the money, and we couldn't purchase it for them."

Except for Maui, which got a grant to cover the program's start-up costs, other counties had to go through lengthy -- or even creative -- processes to get around the statute's restrictions.

On Oahu, it was as simple as timing payments.

"I'm going to cut a check on, like, Monday, and get reimbursed on Tuesday," said Gordon Bruce, director of the Honolulu Department of Information Technology. "Before they even cash it, I'm going to have the money back."

"It's just a matter of coordinating, and just the challenge of working through state procurement law," added Bruce, who co-chairs the e911 board.

The Honolulu Police Department is tentatively scheduled to inaugurate the tracking system on Friday, with Mobi PCS being the first company to join, Bruce said. Other carriers, including Sprint and Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon and Cingular, should be integrated by the first quarter of 2007, he said.

A renovation of HPD's downtown dispatch center is nearly done, with new wiring and equipment being laid out to accommodate the new technology, said Maj. Kenneth Simmons of the department's communications division. For the last few weeks, the island's police dispatchers, who handle more than 67,000 emergency calls each month, have been working in a Kapolei office and receiving e911 training, he said.

Meanwhile, 911 phone operators at military bases like Hickam Air Force Base and Pearl Harbor, who are responsible for calls made in their jurisdictions, may launch the enhanced wireless system as early as Tuesday, Bruce said.

On Kauai and the Big Island, officials signed intergovernmental agreements to overcome funding problems created by the statute's wording, Kahue said.

They are now negotiating contracts to set up the system, which should be up and running in both counties no later than mid-2007, said Tony Ramirez of Akimeka LLC, which is providing technical, administrative and operational support for e911 implementation.

"There was a procedural delay, in that we didn't go to the (county) finance directors first," Ramirez said. "Once we overcame that hurdle, things are really moving forward now."

Maui police Lt. Tivoli Faaumu said e911, which has covered all of Maui and Lanai since October and should reach Molokai soon, helped saved the life of a driver whose car fell 30 feet off a road in Haiku earlier this year.

The person who reported the accident, in which the driver was pinned under the vehicle, couldn't tell the operator where it had happened, Faaumu said. But police were able to send paramedics to the general area where the call originated while they pinpointed the specific site of the wreck.

Faaumo said precious minutes were saved, and "That person eventually survived."

"We know it helps the public. And over here on Maui, we have a lot of remote rural areas," he said. "And it has helped us a lot, more so with the visitors."