by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 13, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
In last week’s Advocate, I wrote about how far we have come in meeting our goal of interoperability and outlined some of the major items we still need to address. This week we will take a deeper dive into where we are today and what remains to be done.
First, let’s look at where we are today and what needs to be done this year. Yes, these things can be completed by the end of the year if public safety, FirstNet (Built with AT&T), the FirstNet Authority, and the vendor community can come to a consensus. As I have said before, this is not rocket science. A large number of agencies already use one of the FirstNet-approved Push-To-Talk (PTT) applications over the FirstNet network, over their LMR (Land Mobile Radio) systems, and to and from other agencies. If the vendor community won’t step up and take part in providing nationwide PTT interoperability, today’s FirstNet-approved PTT vendors that interoperate with each other will be able to go it alone and deliver the solution.
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 13, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
The Enforcement Bureau of the U.S. Federal Communications has entered into Consent Decrees with four major telecom carriers in connection with a system outage that prevented them from delivering 911 emergency calls.
The companies, CenturyLink, Intrado Safety Communications, Cellco Partnership (d/b/a Verizon Wireless), and AT&T Mobility, have agreed to pay a total of nearly $6.3 million in financial penalties for their roles in four separate 911 outages in September 2020. The outages ranged in length from one to three hours and affected users in multiple states across the U.S…
by ECC Editor | Jan 13, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
Most people know to dial 911 when emergency assistance is needed. While there is no denying the current 911 system has helped save countless lives since first introduced, it was primarily developed to work for landline phones.
With over 80% of 911 calls coming from mobile devices today, the need for an updated emergency response system is essential.
At NGA, we’ve heard our fair share of common misconceptions concerning public safety infrastructures and 911 myths stemming from outdated emergency response systems… READ MORE
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 11, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its Public Safety Communications Security white paper today in an effort to explain the importance of Communications Security (COMSEC), basic elements of a COMSEC program, and how to develop an encryption strategy to prevent and mitigate unauthorized access to information.
The white paper focuses on the security of reliable land mobile radio (LMR) communications, with an emphasis on encryption – a critical part of COMSEC…
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 11, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
A career in public safety is not about being a hero in the spotlight, but the fact is that first responders often find themselves in the “starring role” of many incidents, some traumatic. And while the type of first responder in the spotlight will differ from incident to incident depending on the type of emergency at hand, there is one branch of emergency services that rarely finds itself the focus of attention: emergency telecommunicators.
Despite the significant level of responsibility dispatchers bear in any type of emergency event, they are essentially invisible. Their lack of on-scene presence often makes them more of a disembodied information source than a team member. This invisibility can lead to several issues, including a lack of post-incident analysis and debriefing…
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 11, 2022 | Articles, Comm Center News
Our results demonstrate that more precise emergency medical dispatching, measured as dispatch priority, accuracy, and medical condition, was not obtained when an EMD had the support of an RN. EMDs working without an RN dispatched most of the calls with the two highest priorities, while when supported by an RN, the proportion of Priority 1 calls was substantially lower. Concordance in the assessment of priority was higher between the EMD and ambulance when the calls were assessed by the EMD alone. Undertriage was observed more often in calls assessed by an EMD with support from an RN…
