by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 12, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
GM Ventures today announced its participation in the $40 million Series B funding round for RapidDeploy, a public safety technology company working to accelerate Next Generation 911.
This investment will enable RapidDeploy to help improve the public safety community’s situational awareness with a cloud-native, data-driven solution. The announcement underscores General Motors and OnStar’s commitment to working with the public safety community to support and accelerate Next Generation 911 technology adoption and to advance efforts to keep communities safer…
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 12, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
The decision to integrate broadband into public safety communications was not immediate for Mason County. A lot of thought and work went into the county’s testing and planning efforts, beginning in Spring 2018.
“My office manages the physical addresses for the E-911 service so we’re constantly on back roads and away from the busier areas, so we took advantage of that to do drive testing,” Gregg notes. “We said here’s your phone, here’s your device, go do your job, and report back if it didn’t work. We made it to where we were doing that work – testing broadband offerings – while we were doing other things.”
Gregg’s team tested a variety of phones and wireless hotspots while they were in the field. He recognized that performing these initial steps would save a lot of time down the road, ensuring the broadband solution selected met the community’s needs…
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 12, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
At the end of last week, it was announced that both LA City Fire and LA County Health Department had joined FirstNet. LA County Fire, which is part of the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS), already uses FirstNet. It seems a new agency joins FirstNet every week and the network continues to grow.
Spectrum Demand
Spectrum that can be used for wireless communications is a finite resource. In only the last few years, there has been an ever-increasing demand for this spectrum from many including broadband network operators, companies and organizations that want to deploy private networks, and those who want additional unlicensed spectrum. As a result, spectrum allocation has become increasingly difficult. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are being called upon to make some difficult decisions. This situation is further complicated by the advent of 5G, which can be deployed in the low bands (600 MHz up to 1 GHz), mid-band (1 GHz to 6 GHz), and Millimeter Wave band (20 GHz and above) (mmWave)…
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 11, 2021 | Comm Center News
QUAPAW, OK – Multiple agencies are coming together to build a new emergency operations center for the Ottawa County area.
The more than a million dollar facility on East 64 Road in Miami, is being funded by grants.
At 4,000 square feet, it will hold emergency management and the 911 center, and will serve everyone in Ottawa County. Currently, dispatch goes through Miami’s 911 center inside its police department…
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 11, 2021 | Comm Center News
WAHOO – Many refer to dispatchers as the “first” first responders, Saunders County Assistant Dispatch Supervisor Halcyon Frank said.
While they are the first to know of an emergency before passing it along to law enforcement, fire and rescue departments or other first responders, the duties of the important position are fairly unknown.
Because of this, Saunders County Dispatch began offering “sit-alongs” to encourage those interested in the job and inform those unaware of what a dispatcher does on a daily basis.
“(We) want to offer it so that people can see what it’s really all about,” Frank said. “That way if they are interested in the job they can get a front row seat.”
With the sit-along, guests get to meet the office staff, listen in to different calls and learn about the different equipment and programs dispatch utilizes.
Sit-along attendees get to see first-hand what a dispatcher does each shift. A dispatcher acts as the center of the sheriff’s department and all fire and rescue and police departments in the area.
But it is different every day. Some days things are slow and dispatchers are answering non-emergency calls or fielding questions and transferring people. Other days they are making ambulance calls or dealing with a major accident and the dispatcher is practically tied to their chair until they go home.
So far, the sit-alongs have been successful because applicants are more eager to apply, Frank said. The department has hired two new dispatchers since they began this program this summer, she added.
Stacy Kraus, who grew up in Wahoo, participated in a sit-along and said the activity helped her see what the office was like and how dispatchers worked with each other. After getting a tour of the facility and sitting in on a few calls, Kraus decided to apply and was hired.
She said her interest in the position came from previously working at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
“I just want to help people,” Kraus said. “Instead of having control over them.”
Kraus, who currently lives in Lincoln, started the job on Monday. She said she looks forward to learning the position and helping the community she grew up in.
Frank said the program has been beneficial for dispatch because it lets people decide if the job is for them or not instead of going through the whole hiring and training processes first and then figuring out they don’t like the job.
“It’s been good because they’re like this is maybe what they expected or maybe not even what they expected, but it gave them more of an idea and so they’re more excited and eager to apply,” Frank said.
Elsie Stormberg is a reporter for the Wahoo Newspaper. Reach her via email at elsie.stormberg@wahoonews
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