RALEIGH -- The 9-11 Commission Report said one of the biggest problems with emergency response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 was emergency personnel from different agencies couldn't communication with each other.

The report said lives could have been saved if police officers, fire fighters and rescue crews were able to talk on one radio frequency.

Since then, North Carolina has invested nearly $90 million to create an updated statewide radio network for emergency communication. It’s called the VIPER Network, which stands for Voice Interoperability Plan for Emergency Responders.

Granville is one of just 39 counties in the state on the new VIPER radio network. The system allows all the different agencies in the county, including law enforcement, fire, and rescue crews, to talk directly to each other in an emergency.

Sheriff's deputies say it was much more difficult to work with other agencies using the old radio system.

“Being on the low band, everybody would not be on the same sheet of music so to speak,” explained Sgt. Brian Devore, a patrol officer with the Granville County Sheriff’s Office. “We would have to switch over to that channel and then come back to ours and communicate with them back and forth.”

That wasn’t even the worst problem with the old system. Emergency crews said sometimes the old radio system wouldn’t work at all.

“We had a lot of dead spots in Granville County,” Devore said. “You could go some places in the county and not get any signal at all.”

Since joining the state's new 800 megahertz VIPER network though, those are problems of the past.

“In a flip of a switch, you could have communications with basically everybody you need to speak with,” said Devore.

The VIPER network is designed to support every emergency agency in North Carolina. The state has already invested $87 million to build the infrastructure for the network, but it's still far from complete. Forty-one percent of the network isn’t funded or constructed yet.

State leaders say it will take more money to get the entire state on the network.

“To finish it out, to make it 100 percent complete from Murphy to Manteo, funding is the key to successfully completing this network,” said Capt. Alan Melvin, director of the state Highway Patrol’s Technical Services Unit. “If we were given the money tomorrow, $102 million remaining, we could have it completed in two-and-a-half to three years.”

While federal Homeland Security and state dollars pay for most of it, local counties still have to buy the radio equipment. That can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 for each handheld radio. Granville County paid about $5 million for its equipment.

“It wasn't cheap but it's been well worth the implementation,” said Doug Logan, coordinator of Granville County’s Emergency Management unit. He believes the county is now much more prepared to efficiently handle emergencies that require multiple agencies to respond.

When dealing with dangerous situations, quick communication could mean the difference between life or death.