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Mark43, Carbyne Partner on Integrated Cloud-Based Dispatch

A partnership between two applications for law enforcement will move 911 dispatch services to the cloud, allowing responders to receive more data from connected devices and set up impromptu call centers as needed.

Continuing a trajectory of recent growth through partnerships and fundraising, Mark43, a company that makes data-management and communications software for law enforcement, is working with Carbyne’s next-generation 911 system to give agencies the ability to use an entirely cloud-based computer-aided dispatch (CAD) operation.

Mark43’s news release this week called the result the first entirely cloud-based incident-response system in the U.S.

Mark43 Co-Founder and Vice President of Operations Matthew Polega said efficiency and flexibility are the key benefits of a cloud-based dispatch center. He said on-premise CAD centers involve a lot of servers and hardware to maintain, meaning higher costs and no mobility to relocate or set up an impromptu center in the event of a disaster. 

“Because Carbyne and Mark43 are both cloud-based applications, you don’t need all the infrastructure and hardware and on-premises things that you would need to get a [911 call center] set up otherwise,” Polega said. “If there ever was a disaster and a meteor hit an existing [call center], something like that, you could just take your computer and go to a library that has Wi-Fi or a Starbucks or something like that, and continue dispatching units with the same level and quality of information coming in from Carbyne and being transmitted to Mark43, as you would if you had a totally bona fide, built-out [call center] already.”

The other benefit of the partnership is Carbyne’s ability to collect high-quality location data, video and other information from connected devices such as a 911 caller’s smartphone. Ideally this could both improve response time and give responders a clearer idea in advance of what awaits them when they arrive on scene.

Mark43 serves more than 60 public safety agencies, and although the partnership was announced Tuesday, the company was uncertain how soon those customers would see the new solution integrated into its platform.

Andrew Westrope is managing editor of the Center for Digital Education. Before that, he was a staff writer for Government Technology, and previously was a reporter and editor at community newspapers. He has a bachelor’s degree in physiology from Michigan State University and lives in Northern California.