by AllThingsECC.com | Mar 18, 2025 | Comm Center News
Control rooms | Narrowband | Broadband | Video | 2025-03-17
Caltta shares it’s take on how The Jinan Public Safety Department of the capital city of Shandong Province in China is leading the charge, embracing cutting-edge emergency communication solutions to enhance its operational effectiveness.
Caltta shares how the Jinan Public Safety Department of the capital city of Shandong Province in China is leading the charge, embracing cutting-edge emergency communication solutions to enhance its operational effectiveness. At the heart of this transformation is Caltta’s Integrated Communication Platform—a game-changing system that not only modernizes emergency response but also revolutionizes command and dispatch operations, making resource deployment more precise, scientific, and effective.
A New Standard in Emergency Communication: The ‘Four Networks and Four Platforms’ Architecture
Caltta has pioneered an industry-first architecture, constructing an integrated communication platform that brings together four key network levels: Public Safety Information Network, Mobile Information Network, Video Perception Network, and LTE Private Network
This multi-network integration ensures seamless data transmission and resource sharing, enabling faster decision-making and real-time coordination. Advanced network security protocols provide reliable, secure communication across different systems, allowing independent yet interconnected operations.
In complex and dynamic public safety scenarios, each network functions independently while working in unison, ensuring that information flows smoothly and command dispatch remains highly efficient.
Seven Core Capabilities: Redefining Public Safety Command & Dispatch
- Cross-System Voice Trunking – Enables real-time interoperability between different communication systems, ensuring smooth coordination among public safety departments.
- Cross-System Video Dispatch – Integrates video feeds from drones, body cams, surveillance networks, and more, giving commanders instant situational awareness.
- Cross-System Joint Meetings – Officers can initiate or join meetings from any device, anywhere, breaking the limitations of time and location.
- Comprehensive Recording & Documentation – Secure voice and video recordings provide reliable case-tracking and accountability, ensuring compliance and transparency.
- Map-Based Command & Dispatch – A visualized PGIS system displays real-time personnel deployment and event locations, enabling strategic resource allocation.
- Cross-System Multimedia Services – Supports the exchange of text, images, and video, ensuring rich, real-time information sharing.
- Mobile Command & Dispatch – Officers can access the platform via a mobile app, receiving assignments and updating statuses in real-time, improving on-the-go responsiveness.
Open Architecture: Unlocking Advanced Public Safety Applications
Caltta’s platform isn’t just a powerful communication tool—it’s a foundation for innovation. Through open APIs, the platform seamlessly integrates with upper-level applications such as Command and Control Systems, Smart Security Platforms, and Joint Operations Networks to achieve smarter, faster, more fffective operations.
- Enhanced Command & Control – Voice commands can be delivered directly from the control center to field officers with unmatched precision, improving response times.
- Integrated Smart Security – Live video feeds from incident locations can be instantly relayed to command centers, allowing proactive surveillance and real-time threat assessment.
- Seamless Interdepartmental Coordination – Different public safety units can collaborate effortlessly, breaking geographic and operational barriers through cross-system video conferencing and voice communications.
This next-generation approach ensures that no threat goes unnoticed, and no emergency goes unanswered.
Building a Seamless Communication Network: Total Resource Integration
The Jinan Public Safety Department has invested heavily in advanced communication and surveillance technologies, including Drones and body-worn cameras, Mobile terminals and satellite systems, PGIS (Public Geographic Information System), Video conferencing and surveillance systems, 350MHz digital trunking and LTE broadband trunking systems, Portable devices and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).
Caltta’s Integrated Communication Platform brings all these components together into one unified system, ensuring real-time, uninterrupted information exchange—whether in a high-density urban setting or a remote emergency zone.
By eliminating communication blind spots, public safety teams can respond faster and with greater accuracy, improving situational awareness and mission coordination.
The Future of Public Safety: Intelligent, Connected, and Data-Driven
Thanks to Caltta’s Integrated Communication Platform, the Jinan Public Safety Department now operates with greater precision, intelligence, and efficiency than ever before.
As technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data analytics continue to evolve, public safety operations are poised for a new wave of digital transformation.
Caltta remains at the forefront of this revolution, driving continuous innovation to support smarter, faster, and more resilient public safety solutions. By transforming the latest communication technologies into real-world solutions, Caltta is empowering law enforcement and emergency responders with the tools they need to protect and serve their communities more effectively than ever before.
by AllThingsECC.com | Mar 18, 2025 | Comm Center News
A University of Cincinnati Emergency Communications Dispatcher recently received an award from Rave Mobile Safety for her use of an emergency alert in locating a missing child.
On Jan. 12, 2025, a fire alarm went off in Tangeman University Center. As officers were ensuring everyone had safely exited the building, a UC staff member told officers that his 6-year-old child could not be found.
UC Emergency Communications Dispatcher Kylee Beccaccio contacted the lieutenant on duty and told him that she had an emergency alert ready to send campuswide about the missing child.
“I was inspired to request permission to send the emergency alert because of the training I received. Emergency alerts can be used in many ways, and this is a very good example of how we use it. When I sent the alert out Cincinnati Police called and told me that they were sending extra units to help us,” Beccaccio said.
Within 20 minutes, the child was located and reunited with the child’s father. The emergency alert, sent via Rave Alert, the system that UC Public Safety uses to send emergency alerts, helped officers located the child so quickly.
“This was a very good feeling knowing the more the merrier. CPD made contact with the lost child which then felt a very good sign of relief,” Beccaccio said.
The Rave SmartSave Award recognizes those who use Rave products in a way that positively impacts an emergency call and/or response. This is the third time a UC emergency communications dispatcher has received a SmartSave award.
“This is a good example of using a tool in a unique way in a unique situation. We rarely deal with missing kids outside of football games, so alerting as many people as possible is harder than just a football announcement. With an alert, Kylee was able to notify a huge amount of people in the area all at once, whether they were inside or outside since it went to text, signage and desktops,” said Ted Langdon, Emergency Communications Manager. “I feel that it shows quick thinking and understanding of the resources we have available to help the community as rapidly as possible.”
Featured image at top: From left, UC Public Safety Director and Chief of Police Eliot Isaac, Emergency Communications Dispatcher Kylee Beccaccio and Emergency Communications Manager Ted Langdon pose with Beccaccio’s SmartSave Award. Photo by Kelly Cantwell.
by AllThingsECC.com | Mar 18, 2025 | Comm Center News
WASHINGTON (7News) — D.C. leaders and public safety advocates are closely watching the U.S. House of Representatives, as they are considering a bill that restores more than $1 billion to the city’s budget that was cut in the spending bill Congress had to approve to avert a government shutdown.
Ahead of the vote on the spending bill, city leaders went to Capitol Hill multiple times this week to talk lawmakers into getting rid of the measure that cuts D.C.’s spending.
Mayor Muriel Bowser and others warned this could lead to tens of millions of dollars being cut from key public safety and education services, including almost $4 million from D.C.’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC), which runs the 911 call center.
Dave Statter, who is a public safety advocate and a long-time watchdog of OUC, told 7News this cut could kneecap an agency that has already been hobbling —in the eyes of critics— for the past year.
“With this bill, essentially what is happening is they’re defunding the police, fire, EMS, and 911 and other important agencies that make the difference between life and death in the city,” Statter said. “It’s probably somewhere near a 5 % cut in their operating budget. “They’re already having problems filling positions. They’ve apparently done better in hiring more people. I’d hate there to be a setback. Having effective leadership has been the big problem in OUC, but if you cut 3-to-5 % of their budget, that’s not a good sign for OUC.”
The 7News I-Team has reported at least eight technical incidents with the 911 call center since May 2024, which is less than a year ago.
Just this past week, as lawmakers debated the spending bill that included the cut to the nation’s capital, there were two concerning incidents at OUC.
Last Sunday, there were a number of calls that went unanswered by dispatch over a five-minute period.
Just days later, on Wednesday, OUC reported a 12-minute interference issue that resulted from a faulty antenna located in a different building in the city.
The agency released the following statement for the Wednesday incident:
Earlier today (Wednesday, March 12, 2025), the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) shared information related to an unauthorized remote user that caused interference with OUC’s radio system relied on by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The incident investigation, conducted by OUC and the Federal Communications Commission, has concluded. There was no malice associated with the incident as it was caused by a faulty bi-directional antenna located in a building within the District. Installers are working to correct the issue. This morning, the radio system was impacted for approximately 12 minutes and there was no total loss of service. Property owners and managers should familiarize themselves with bi-directional antenna requirements for the District of Columbia.
Statter said he worries issues at OUC will only get worse if the cuts to the city’s budget remain.
“Taking this money away will make it worse. It will impact 911. They won’t have the money to hire people, probably. They likely won’t have to money for all of the overtime that’s necessary to keep those seats filled 24/7,” Statter said. “If you don’t have the money for training, if you don’t have the money to have people answer the phones promptly, people will get delayed calls, they’ll get people who aren’t trained well enough. They already have that problem.”
City leaders and Statter may have suffered some whiplash Friday night.
That night, the Senate approved the spending bill as-is, keeping the D.C. budget cut in.
However, immediately after, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced a standalone bill to undo the funding cut from the spending bill.
“This bill would simply fix a mistake in the House CR that prevents the District of Columbia from spending its own tax dollars as part of its budget, which Congress routinely approves,” Collins said. “As a result, unless this bill is passed, D.C. would have to operate under its fiscal year ’24 budget for the remainder of 25, potentially requiring $1.1 billion in local spending cuts. Reducing D.C.’s local funding expenditures will not result in a dollar of federal savings.”
The Senate passed the bill to restore D.C.’s funding, and it now awaits a vote in the House.
Collins said the bill has been endorsed by President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who is the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations.
Until the House approves the standalone bill, the District is still technically short more than $1 billion from the budget with only half of the fiscal year left to go.
7News On Your Side asked OUC how any cuts to the agency could affect service. A spokesperson deferred to Mayor Bowser’s office.
A spokesperson from the mayor’s office provided a statement saying, “We remain hopeful that our partners in Congress will get it fixed this week. We sent a balanced budget to Congress last year, they approved it, and we have been operating under this budget for nearly six months.”
7News On Your Side also reached out to the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer, asking the following questions:
- Until the standalone bill fully passes, is your office preparing what cuts and/or layoffs to make?
- Have cuts or layoffs already been made?
- If the standalone bill does not pass, how soon will your office begin funding cuts and layoffs?
A spokesperson provided the following statement in response:
There is no need to take immediate action. However, we are prepared to work with the Mayor and Council to take the necessary steps if the final bill is not approved.
The House is scheduled to reconvene on the floor on Tuesday.
Until then, there may be a great deal of breath-holding across the District.
“The people who are going to suffer when they take money away from OUC is the public. Ultimately, they’re the ones who hurt when 911 isn’t operating properly,” Statter said. “And it also impacts the people who perform public safety out in the field: police, firefighters, EMTs. 911 is also their life safety line, and if they don’t have the people in the seats – the dispatchers, particularly, right now they’re very shorthanded – they’re not going to get the help they need when they’re in an emergency.”
by AllThingsECC.com | Mar 18, 2025 | Comm Center News
COMMERCE CITY, Colo.—The Monitoring Association (TMA) has announced that the Adams County Communications Center Authority (ADCOM911) has completed implementation of the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) Service.
ADCOM911 went live with the service on March 4, becoming the 149th emergency communications center (ECC) in the U.S. and fourth in Colorado to adopt the ASAP program
The ECC dispatches emergency services for multiple law-enforcement agencies, including the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Brighton Police Department, Commerce City Police Department, and Northglenn Police Department, as well as multiple fire districts and departments.
The decision to implement ASAP Service was driven by ADCOM911’s desire to reduce the number of incoming calls to its ECC from alarm-notification centers; it also wanted to minimize human typing errors and accelerate call-processing times. The adoption of ASAP Service will enhance emergency-response efforts significantly by streamlining the transmission of alarm data directly from alarm-monitoring centers to ECCs (also known as 911 centers), eliminating the need for verbal relay of information and ensuring greater accuracy and speed.
“ADCOM911 is excited to announce the implementation of ASAP Service. ADCOM911 is striving constantly to improve our service to the community, and this application will aid us in that endeavor as it streamlines the dispatch process, shortens response times, and greatly assists in saving lives and property,” said Joel Estes, ADCOM911’s director.
In 2024, ADCOM911 handled approximately 12,000 alarm calls, an increase from 11,500 alarm calls in 2023. The agency also managed more than 170,000 emergency calls and 500,000 total calls, dispatching more than 300,000 service requests last year. As the population served by ADCOM911 continues to experience significant growth, the integration of ASAP Service is a crucial step toward ensuring public-safety communications keep pace with increasing demands.
ADCOM911’s ASAP Service implementation is supported by the following alarm companies: ADS, ADT, Affiliated, Alert 360, Brinks Home Monitoring, Dynamark, EverOn, Guardian Protection, National Monitoring Center, Rapid Response Monitoring Services, Security Central, Securitas, Tyco/JCI, United Central Control, Vector Security, and Vivint.
Since its launch in 2011, ASAP Service has been helping ECCs reduce the time it takes to dispatch emergency responders by an average of two minutes for alarm- and sensor-generated calls initiated by alarm-monitoring centers. By delivering information directly to an ECC’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and automatically creating a call for service without human interaction, ASAP Service is reducing time to action, workload, and human errors to improve emergency-response outcomes. ASAP Service utilizes American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard protocols developed cooperatively by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) and TMA.
Learn more about how TMA’s ASAP Service saves lives every day nationwide at www.ASAP911.org.
by AllThingsECC.com | Mar 14, 2025 | Comm Center News
The city and county have been discussing the possibility of a joint 911 call center for a decade now.
Fayetteville is rapidly outgrowing its current emergency communications center, located on the second floor of City Hall, and city leaders are looking to build a new, larger center that can be operational by 2028. The current 911 center is also problematic, city officials said, because it is located in between railroads that sometimes carry hazardous materials and the building is vulnerable to flooding issues.
