On Friday, August 25, Clark County and City of Springfield officials dedicated the new Clark County 911 Communications Center in memory of Deputy Suzanne Hopper, and the 911 Training Center in memory of Deputy Matthew Yates.
Wireless carriers continue to improve their ability to provide 911 centers with more location—including vertical Z-axis information—but the FCC continues to hope that carriers will be able to provide a dispatchable location with emergency calls, an FCC official said this week during the APCO 2023 event in Nashville, Tenn.
The state legislature set aside a special fund in the last session to help the transition, including in Benton County. Sheriff Troy Heck says the facility is going from analog to digital. “So, instead of having 911 call flow over telephone lines, we’re now going to be using a computerized network that is going to move the calls from your telephone, essentially, to the public safety answering point, the PSAP.”
The city of Seattle has agreed to pay $162,500 to settle a lawsuit by a former 911 call center manager who said he was wrongly punished for speaking up about problems at work, including a dispatch practice that allegedly contributed to a fatal heart attack.
NASHVILLE—After years of work, Real-time text (RTT) solutions are being used in 911 centers today, and the technology’s flexibility could portend a future in which RTT is used to support emergency calling beyond the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, APCO panelist said.
