The Prescription for Thwarting Cyberattacks

Hackers can wreak havoc on public safety communications networks. Fortunately, there is a lot that agencies can do to increase the difficulty of hacking their networks to lessen, and even prevent, the effects of cyberattacks.

While it is next to impossible to prevent cyberattacks entirely, taking these steps will make it more difficult for hackers to execute them and will lessen their impact on public safety communications networks when they do occur…

EOC should stay with sheriff’s office (FL)

The county commissioners are considering managing the 911 Emergency Operations Center operated and managed by the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office. No way should the commissioners be involved in the managing and operation of the Operations Center. The Emergency Operations Center (911) is a second-by-second operation handling life-threatening situations every minute. Every second counts…

Barriers to Perform and Causes of Delay in the Delivery of Dispatcher-Assisted CPR: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Since 2008, dispatcher-assisted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DA-CPR) has been running in Tehran, Iran. However, there are numerous cases that the emergency medical dispatchers (EMDs) did not provide DA-CPR or the bystander refused to perform CPR. The purpose of this study was to survey and identifypossible barriers to bystander resuscitation in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases…

SAFETY: CONNECTED FIRST RESPONDERS

Many buildings use video and audio monitoring, transmitting data to monitoring centers, which contact first responders when alarms are triggered. But even in 2020, information about a scene where an alarm was triggered is still often relayed to first responders by telephone.

“Video or audio data may be available in a monitoring center, and a description of what the operator sees or hears is commonly relayed to the ECC [Emergency Communications Center] verbally,” says Celia T. Besore, MBA, CAE, executive director of The Monitoring Association, the trade organization representing the professional monitoring industry…READ MORE

FCC Won’t Stay 6 GHz Wi-Fi Order

he FCC has denied petitions by public safety and utility organizations to stay its decision to open up the entire 6 GHz band for unlicensed WiFi use pending judicial review.

In an order issued Thursday, from Ronald Repasi, acting chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, the FCC said that neither the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) nor the Association of PublicSafety Communications Officials-International, Inc (APCO) had shown they were likely to win their case on the merits, had not shown their members would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay, had not shown that others would not be harmed by a stay, or that the stay was in the public interest, all of which boxes need to be checked to earn a stay…

What public safety users are saying about mobile device use

As public safety users rely more and more often on mobile technology, what are the common issues they encounter with smartphones and tablets that are almost always designed for consumer use?

At the recent virtual incarnation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) annual stakeholder meeting, researchers Yee-Yin Choong and Shanee Dawkins presented some of the data from a survey of more than 7,000 first responders and in-depth interviews with more than 200, which they have been mining for insights on how public safety personnel use mobile devices and applications and some of the problems that they encounter…