|
Videos
August 10, 2011 By News Staff
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled a five-point plan to move the nation onto next-generation 911 (NG911) during the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International Conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Aug. 10.
Next-gen 911 would allow people to submit voice, text, data, photos and video over an IP-based network to public safety answering points, the communications centers that dispatch emergency calls.
“It's hard to imagine that airlines can send text messages if your flight is delayed, but you can't send a text message to 911 in an emergency,” Genachowski said.
The five-point plan, as follows, was posted Wednesday to the FCC website:
1. Develop location accuracy mechanisms for NG911: The FCC's Location Accuracy proceeding (July 2011 agenda item) has launched development of a framework for providing automatic location information in the next-gen 911 environment.
2. Enable consumers to send text, photos and videos to public safety answering points: Next month, the FCC will consider a notice of proposed rulemaking to accelerate NG911 adoption. The notice will help answer practical, technical questions about how to enable text, photo and video transmission to 911, including how to ensure adequate broadband infrastructure to deliver the bandwidth public safety answering points will need to provide next-gen 911. As part of the notice, the FCC will examine interim solutions for ensuring that carriers/service providers support transmission of text-to-911.
3. Facilitate the completion and implementation of NG911 technical standards: For next-gen 911 to be effective, we need technical standards for the hardware and software that carriers and public safety answering points use to communicate NG911 information. The FCC will work with stakeholders to resolve standards issues and facilitate consistent and coordinated implementation of a standards-based architecture.
4. Develop a NG911 governance framework: Because no single governing entity has jurisdiction over next-gen 911, the FCC will work with state 911 authorities, federal agencies and governing entities to provide technical expertise and develop a coordinated approach to next-gen 911 governance.
5. Develop a NG911 funding model: To assist 911 authorities and Congress in considering
next-gen 911 funding options, the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will prepare a cost model focused on the cost-effectiveness of the next-gen 911 network infrastructure linking public safety answering points and carriers.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/FCC-Chairman-Unveils-Plan-Next-Gen-911.html
Collaborative Justice: Transforming Criminal Justice Services Through Unified Collaboration
Cloud-Based Services Accelerate Public Sector Adoption of Video Collaboration
It's great that the FCC and USG are taking serious interest in establishing true NG911 technology. The majority of U.S. 911 centers are not equipped to receive a text or photo message, though there is technology currently available to establish that capability. The FCC's 5-step plan hits all the main issues that need to be addressed. I hope that the timeline for completion is commensurate with the significant benefit this technology will bring to public safety.
We are reaching out to the FCC Chairman to discuss our present beta testing of Guardian Watch.com. We believe it is going to take entrepreneurial efforts like ours to get the NG911 operational. While the Feds and Congress try to figure out the funding sources, we'll be working our "Bootstrapped" tails off. DrJ
I certainly hope the governance structure will not be composed of technical experts only and will include operational experts who will have the daunting task of ensuring the implementation can and will work in a real world dispatch center.
I'm glad to see that step 1 is location accuracy. Without accurate ALI none of the rest really matters much.