Debt of gratitude owed all medical first responders (MI)

Within minutes after area residents or visitors to our community call Lapeer County 911 Central Dispatch to report a medical emergency, help is on the way. To the individuals, family members or passersby who placed the 911 call it matters little what colors or whose agency name is on the side of the ambulance, fire truck, or first responder units that show up on scene sirens blaring and lights flashing.

What matters most is that help gets there fast when minutes can be the difference between life and death without medical intervention. Maybe it’s a stroke, a heart attack, an opioid overdose, a suicide attempt, a vehicular or farm-implement accident or an industrial mishap at a local manufacturing facility…

$10,000 PLUS DAILY PENALTIES?: Be Sure to Follow FCC Guidance to Avoid Big Fines Under Kari’s Law and Section 506 of RAY BAUM’S Act

I’ve been receiving a number of questions about the roll out of Kari’s Law and I figured I’d do a quick post on it, even though it is not technically a TCPA issue.

At a high level the Act requires that multi-line telephone systems (including certain VOIP and cloud-based systems) have the ability to pass a 911 dial through the system without having to “press 9” or any other number. It also requires certain notification capabilities to held guide first responders to the “dispatchable location” of the 911 report… READ MORE

From the Command Center: A Conversation with Walter “Pete” Landon, Maryland Governor’s Office of Homeland Security

By Lori Stone, Senior Public Safety Advisor, First Responder Network Authority

When Walter “Pete” Landon was growing up in Montreal, Canada, he idolized the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But he was an American citizen whose father had moved the family north for work, and therefore couldn’t fulfill his dream of becoming a Mountie. Now, after more than three decades spent in law enforcement with local and state departments in Maryland, he can look back on a career in law enforcement with pride and the insights of how policing has evolved in that time. In particular, he has seen how technology has improved the way officers communicate and share information, starting with the age-old phenomenon known as “skip.”

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911 center operators share lessons learned from the pandemic

Hundreds of dispatch center leaders from across the nation are meeting in San Diego for the annual conference of The National Emergency Number Association, or NENA. And the pandemic is at the forefront.

“There’s never been anything like this in our lifetime,” said April Heinze, the 9-1-1 Operations Director with NENA. She says during this pandemic, being there is becoming more and more difficult for our first, first responders. “Overwhelmingly the average 911 center, staffing-wise, is down about 30 percent … all the way to very large 911 centers in urban areas that were [in a] more than 50 percent staffing crisis…

APCO Files a Project Initiation to Create a New Candidate Standard for Common Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Public Safety GIS Identifiers

Alexandria, VA – The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International has filed a Project Initiation with ANSI for the creation of a candidate standard titled Common Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Public Safety GIS Identifiers.

Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems are the principal application used by public safety agencies to manage law enforcement, fire and EMS incidents from the initial time an incident is reported, to the conclusion of the incident. These systems may be composed of both tabular records management systems (RMS) and spatial or geographic information (Geofile) systems…

Introduction of C-Band Spectrum: A Connectivity Building Block

Supports AT&T’s Unique “3 Networks” Approach 
For Wireless, Fiber and First Responders

By Chris Sambar, EVP – Technology Operations, AT&T

You just want it to work. Your phone. Your laptop. Your video game console and your streaming service. The firefighter or EMT answering an emergency call in your neighborhood. These connections matter.

We power these connections, from wireless to fiber to first responders. It’s a unique privilege and responsibility, and we’re constantly investing in those 3 networks to keep them on the leading edge.

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