911 dispatch systemsPlans for nationwide 911 dispatch centers advance
Municipalities across the country are planning to connect 911 dispatch centers in an effort to improve information sharing. Plan is to connect dispatchers via the Internet, which will allow centers quickly to transfer calls, 911 text messages, photos, videos of accident scenes, and other information. The technology is part of a “Next Generation 911” initiative already being implemented across the country.
Municipalities across the country are planning to connect 911 dispatch centers in an effort to improve information sharing. Paul Nave, director of Owensboro-Daviess County’s 911 dispatch center in Kentucky said the plan is to connect dispatchers via the Internet, which will allow centers quickly to transfer calls, 911 text messages, photos, videos of accident scenes, and other information. The technology is part of a “Next Generation 911” initiative already being implemented across the country.
The Messenger-Inquirer reports that planned regional hubs would be connected through hardwire and wireless, and if a regional center experienced an equipment failure, 911 calls could be routed through servers in another hub and relayed to the affected center. “It’s interesting to think we can still do the job and (use) a server 100 miles away, and it will be seamless,” Nave said.
Joe Barrows, executive director of the Kentucky Commercial Radio Service Board, said dispatch centers are replacing their old analogy technology. One of the board’s goal is to create an “IP (Internet Protocol)-based network to receive, process, route and deliver all 911 calls within a State of Kentucky Managed Network.”
“Today, we have a lot more ways in which people communicate, (such as) texting and videos. None of that is compatible with the old 911 system,” Barrows said. Adding that with the new technology, “you’ll now deliver 911 calls digitally over an emergency services network.”
The federal government is not requiring states to create emergency services networks, but Nave and Barrows said they expect a federal mandate in the future. “What’s happening in the 911 world is a modernization of the 911 system that has been in place and operating on technology that is 30 years old,” Barrows said. “911 is the last holdout … for analog.
Funding for the new networks is expected to come from monthly 911 fees on landlines and cellphones, though fees from landlines have declined in recent years as people replace them with cellphones. A recent bill in Kentucky to raise the amount collected on cellphones from seventy cents to one dollar for 911 centers did not pass in the state’s General Assembly. “The process is ongoing, but hasn’t culminated yet,” Barrows said. “We’re educating a few (legislators) at a time.”
