by AllThingsECC.com | Sep 2, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
By Kevin Nida, First Responder Network Authority Senior Public Safety Advisor
As wildfires are roaring across the West Coast, the need for connectivity amongst first responders is more crucial than ever.
Enter FirstNet.
When the ongoing Miles Fire forced the residents and community of Prospect, OR, to evacuate, the Fire Incident Management Team called in FirstNet for support. A Satellite Cell on Light Truck (SatCOLT) is deployed at base camp where nearly 2,000 first responders gather to coordinate their response efforts as the wildfire has grown over the past month.
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by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 26, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
I find it interesting that Verizon has said the problem occurred in the Customer Service Department. I do not believe that is correct and I believe the documentation shows that not to be correct. (We have posted the document on our site.) In reviewing the email attached to the FCC filing it clearly indicates that the Verizon Account Manager was one of the individuals who was responsible and was engaged with the fire district. I have never had an account Manager who couldn’t solve a problem like this or couldn’t find the person to solve such a problem. This was not the fault of a “Customer Service Department”. The Account Manager was engaged and in the email pawned them off on customer service.
Now this gets better. I don’t want to point fingers at an individual or individuals who are doing their job that may be in accordance with company policy. If you review the emails in more detail what you will see is the name of an additional Verizon employee who was copied on this issue. This person appears to be a Verizon Vice President, according to a LinkedIn search, who was copied on the emails discussing this problem. This person either didn’t read the email because it wasn’t important or this person intentionally did not engage to solve the problem. My points are simple. Verizon executives knew or should have known failed to take action to help their public safety customer during an event that was threatening life and or property. Secondly Verizon has intentionally taken steps to point the blame at an inanimate object the “Customer Service Department” and in a press release by a Verizon Senior Vice President is quoted as saying “…we didn’t live up to our own promise of service and performance excellence when our process failed some first responders…”. Really, “our process failed”? No Verizon as a company failed and people, your executives, failed to take action to support your public safety customer.
As to their recent announcement not to throttle.
Back in another life I worked in the intelligence community and we called this type of language a “talk around”. People talking around the subject in an attempt to avoid disclosing the truth or something they shouldn’t be disclosing. In this effort to avoid full disclosure everyone should review Verizon’s new commitment to not throttle during disasters. There is a “gotcha” in it. This line was in the San Jose Newspaper quoting a Verizon spokesperson which said, “Public safety workers would be throttled if they exceed their contractual data cap for the third consecutive month. If exceeded for the third straight month, data speeds would be reduced to 3G speeds, according to Erwin.” I got some news for Verizon. Fire season in most years is normally about 5 months out west and in California it goes on much longer. This reminds me of games children play where the rules change and there is always an exception.
I have been told, but I have not seen this document yet, that the fine print on the “new” public safety plan has a requirement that most agencies won’t be able to operationally execute on. Some of these requirements would be having the correct password, account number and pins to release any caps. Verizon fails, again, to understand that when responding to an emergency first responders must focus on saving life and property not who has the password. As a former department head overseeing public safety tech here’s one more tidbit for Verizon. Most first responders won’t know they have been throttled and won’t have time to call someone. All they will know is that it simply isn’t working and they will go to Plan B, if they have a Plan B.
And what about this announcement that, “Verizon will lift all data caps on public safety workers for unlimited data plans in California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii”. Take note, another perfect example of Verizon not understanding public safety. For those who have never been part of a western wildland event the Incident Management Teams are made up of first responders from many states. You could easily and probably do have incident teams from Colorado, Utah, Texas or anywhere working in California. What is Verizon going to do about those users data cap and how are they going to be identified? And also let’s be clear in this special treatment of a few states, disasters are still occurring in Nevada, Montana and other states. It would appear they are not as important to Verizon.
Verizon keeps saying they want interoperability with FirstNet. Why would anyone allow a company that minimizes major events, has complex terms for data plans and sees these significant issues as “process” problems, be their provider if they can’t be upfront when there is a problem? Can they be trusted to be connected to a mission critical public safety network? Not in my view.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this company or any company with whom the author may be associated.
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 22, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
By Richard Mirgon, Public Safety Consultant
Remember the Verizon commercial during the Super Bowl ( https://allthingsfirstnet.com/the-verizon-super-bowl-ad-is-problematic-heres-why/ ) telling the world how much they support public safety? Many times in the last year we have provided examples of how Verizon has failed public safety. Well like we said in our tweet Tuesday night, “you just can’t make this up.” Verizon keeps saying to public safety “we got your back.” Well they don’t and just because a senior vice president says so doesn’t make that true. In case you missed it and are wondering what I am talking about ( https://allthingsfirstnet.com/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/ ) there have been multiple stories run in the last 24 hours about how Verizon throttled the data speeds of Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection Districts during a wildland fire. As firefighters were risking their lives and property was burning, Verizon throttled their data speed when they needed it most.
This is exactly why we created FirstNet. As we have said over and over and over again “a commercial network is not designed to be a public safety grade network.” Oh yes, and let’s remember Verizon said basically that same thing in a meeting in Herndon, VA around 2010. Verizon continues to try and say FirstNet is nothing more than AT&T’s commercial network, which is wrong. They continue to try and tell public safety they have also been there for public safety, which is wrong. Verizon is only trying to maintain a customer base to protect profit and stock price. I am sure if you are one of Verizon’s top paying customers you don’t experience any of these problems.
I would really like to go on about how FirstNet is different in that it is a public safety network, built to public safety needs, with public safety oversight, public safety exclusive call centers and a contract requiring AT&T to provide all those services and more, but I already said that multiple times. Instead, let’s talk about Verizon’s response as reported by BBC news (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45270854). “Verizon said a mistake had been made. However, it highlighted that the fire department had subscribed to a contract that stated data throughput would be cut after a usage limit had been hit.” Oh, I see, it was the fire department’s fault. They didn’t read the fine print or maybe they just use too much data.
I should also point out that not only didn’t Verizon have someone available to solve the problem by releasing the cap, but according to the article the solution was that they had to pay Verizon more money to solve the problem. The picture in my head is that of an incident command team standing around the command vehicle with fire burning everywhere when someone yells out “chief, did you bring the credit card, I have Verizon on the phone and I need to buy more data.”
What’s the solution? FirstNet. It is still in year one of a multiyear build, but if you have coverage today you should be calling your FirstNet representative for service before you become a victim of a commercial data network.
And one last thing. Thank you, Verizon, for once again proving that a commercial carrier is not designed to support public safety.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of this company or any company with whom the author may be associated.
Richard Mirgon is a Public Safety consultant focused on FirstNet. He is a Past President of APCO International and has over 35 years of public safety and first responder experience. For more information about the author please go to http://www.next-paradigm.com/about/
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 22, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
By Harry Markley, Senior Law Enforcement Advisor
I was honored to participate in this year’s National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) Annual Conference in Hollywood, Florida.
During the conference, I was part of a panel presentation about FirstNet, with executives from AT&T and representatives from Atlanta and DeKalb County, Georgia. One of the questions I got during the panel, was; “What makes FirstNet different?” After all, there are other carriers that can provide phone and data services to law enforcement.
I told a story of what FirstNet is, emphasizing that on FirstNet, public safety will have First Priority™, competing with no one for air time. FirstNet is truly different from other commercial offerings because:
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by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 17, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
Many of the most prominent modern emergency response challenges stem from a lack of complete situational visibility … and the guesswork that follows.
But imagine a future where automatic surveillance helps officers eliminate surprises when responding to a break-in and understand everything from the entry point to the number of armed individuals inside. Or one where EMS teams can immediately access OnStar data to deploy an adequate number of responders to an accident site and ensure full and proper treatment.
Thanks to elevated CAD systems with Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) technology, this future already is a reality. More emergency response teams are turning to these tools to raise their intelligence while minimizing their reliance on manual dispatching and routing processes.
Better yet, many adopters are quickly realizing the unlimited potential of next-level CAD technology to deliver benefits beyond fundamental response.
Guilford Metro 9-1-1 (NC), for example, expanded its CAD response platform to improve overall department efficiency. Thus far, the integration has proven fruitful, as the center has reduced its dispatch time from several minutes to a few seconds, while enabling employees to respond to more calls and eliminate operational bottlenecks.
However, while Guilford Metro 9-1-1 public safety IT manager Glenn Lamb notes excitement around these improvements, he sees even greater opportunity for the next generation of CAD to improve public safety.
“Next-generation CAD paves the way for the future,” said Lamb. “I can have a video link from security cameras or even use Ring, for instance, and see a doorbell. I can also pull information from a fire alarm panel, and even access crash impact ratings from OnStar.”
In particular, Lamb believes these analytics will significantly alter future response patterns. By understanding the nature of the emergency and integrating historical data, responders can take appropriate action. For example, dispatchers can allocate resources in alignment with an accident’s OnStar impact rating, preventing excess deployment while freeing up responders for newer or more pressing emergencies.
Given the advantages, why aren’t more agencies rushing to adopt more powerful and intelligent CAD systems? According to Lamb, it all comes down to having the right technology available to organize and process incoming data.
“The biggest hurdle right now is working on a reliable and user-friendly interface to help connect all of these various data points into one streamlined system,” explained Lamb. “The ideas are there, the collaboration is there, and the interface design and programming are on their way.”
As the future of CAD focuses on extending data integration and refining predicative analytics, agencies can improve dispatch procedural preparedness, streamline call processes and increase safety and efficiency.
With the progression of CAD technology, we will no longer have to imagine a future where officers and EMS teams are better prepared. We can live it, and benefit from it.
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 16, 2018 | Articles, Comm Center News
The Automated Secure Alarm Protocol Goes Live at its 40th Location
Alpharetta, Ga. has become the 40th public-safety answering point (PSAP) in the United States to implement the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) program and the first agency in the state of Georgia to use it. Georgia is the 13th state, in addition to the District of Columbia, to participate in the ASAP program.
The Alpharetta PSAP, which also dispatches for Milton, Ga., is currently operational with ADS Security in Nashville, Tyco, Rapid Response Monitoring, Vector Security, Protection One, Central Security, Guardian Protection Services, Affiliated Monitoring, Brinks, ESC Central and Vivint.
Security Central and ADT will be live with Alpharetta within the next few weeks.
“The City of Alpharetta is excited and honored to be the first agency in the state of Georgia to implement the ASAP program,” said Ben Bolin, Alpharetta Police Department’s 9-1-1 operations manager.
“In addition to the alarm companies currently participating with Alpharetta, ASAP is expected to be the catalyst to encourage participation by local alarm companies in the ASAP program. The ASAP program is state-of-the art technology by fully automating the delivery of alarm notifications to Alpharetta’s emergency communications center within seconds from alarm monitoring companies without having to make a telephone call.”
