The 2025 State of the 9-1-1 Industry report released Tuesday by Intrado Life & Safety Inc. provides an in-depth look at the technologies, challenges and opportunities redefining emergency communications — with a particular focus on how agencies are advancing the implementation of Next-Generation 911 (NG911) systems.
The report paints a picture of an ecosystem where public safety answering points (PSAPs), communications providers, satellite companies, schools, consumer device manufacturers, and tech vendors are all working toward a more responsive 911, which is beneficial. But with so many players involved — and an increasing number of ways people can communicate with emergency services — coordination isn’t always straightforward, its authors found.
Lauren Kravetz, Intrado vice president of government affairs, noted that many individuals are now sending calls to 911 in ways that transcend traditional communications modes — via smartwatches and Internet of Things devices, and car crash detection systems. That growing complexity, she said, is compounded by a lack of shared understanding among stakeholders.
“Despite our years in this industry, we were still surprised by the knowledge gaps between providers and PSAPs. They don’t fully understand each other’s technologies and operational constraints,” said Kravetz, a co-author of the report, indicating there’s a lack of basic understanding of how 911 works among many new entrants.
Those challenges become even more pressing when viewed alongside some of the report’s 911 usage statistics, which highlight just how critical it is for these systems to function effectively. Each year, more than 240 million 911 calls are made in the U.S. — averaging around 657,000 calls per day. Roughly 80 percent of those now come from mobile phones. And while at least 70 percent of the U.S. population lives in states that have begun implementing NG911, no state has yet reached full end-to-end deployment.
The slow rollout of NG911, Kravetz said, is more about capacity, which adds a layer of difficulty to an already challenging process.
“A lot of states don’t have statewide 911 authorities, so transition is happening at the PSAP or regional level,” she said. “Equipment life cycle plays a role too, and the funding issue is a nationwide issue.”
The challenge extends further, to the network itself. As the report puts it, retiring legacy networks is “like switching aircraft engines mid-flight.” PSAPs must keep both analog and Internet protocol-based networks functioning during the transition, according to Kravetz, and they face the growing risk that aging components — often sourced on the used parts market — will fail before full NG911 systems are ready.
“The effort is in the move, not in the end game,” Kravetz said. “The old network needs to remain ‘up’ along with the NG network for some period of time. And because this is 911, at least one network — old or new — always has to be up.”
Other key findings in the report center around platform security, extended network coverage, artificial intelligence integration and legislative impacts.
When it comes to security, emergency centers are ramping up efforts to defend against evolving threats like ransomware and distributed denial-of-service attacks. However, the report notes that consistent security standards across jurisdictions remain a work in progress, leaving some centers more vulnerable than others.
At the same time, some technological advancements are expanding the reach and resilience of the 911 system. These innovations are being shaped in part by policy. Legislation and regulations have long played a role in advancing 911 technology federally — from the introduction of wireless-enhanced 911 and text-to-911 to improvements in location accuracy. Now, state governments are working to define how legislation regarding emergency services will evolve locally, per the report.
Still, amid the push for technical and policy progress, the report emphasizes that people — not just systems — remain at the heart of 911, and explains why support for them should not be optional.
“Improved access to mental health and wellness services is a key reason why reclassifying 911 telecommunicators as ‘protective service’ personnel rather than ‘clerical’ is so important,” Kravetz said. States including Texas, California, Missouri, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Indiana have already done so.
Kravetz said she hopes the report will help “educate people who see only their particular slice of this space” and spark more cross-sector collaboration. But turning that broader understanding into meaningful action — especially around securing federal funding — hinges on one critical first step: updated cost estimates.
This is particularly urgent because, Kravetz said, there’s no federal funding source on which states can rely.
“What’s missing from the discussion about identifying federal funds for NG911 is that the cost estimates to complete the transition across the country have become stale,” she said. “Without a data-driven estimate of the need, it’s highly unlikely that legislation could be enacted to fund NG911.”
Intrado is now working with public safety and industry groups, Kravetz said, to support a data collection bill that would give Congress the updated numbers needed to help states secure federal funding to advance 911 systems nationwide.
