Keep Your 911 Commitment

In your day-to-day work life, have you ever stopped to wonder why you continue to come in to work every day? Why the PSAP life? More specifically, why you are an emergency services telecommunicator?

Bills, boredom, family to support, or just getting out of the house? Could it also be service to others, comradery, working as a team or family, benefits, or the love of what you do? One of the primary reasons may be due to the commitment you have to your PSAP. Your PSAP is more than just the job: it is the people surrounding you, the policies that you adhere to, and hopefully the difference you make on a daily basis…

CISA Video Addresses P25 Funding Issues and the Future of the P25 Standard

CISA Video Addresses P25 Funding Issues and the Future of the P25 Standard

For agencies considering the transition to P25, the video offers insights and advice from public safety officials with firsthand experience. 

The Project 25 (P25) standard for public safety land mobile radio (LMR) enables responders from different disciplines and jurisdictions to communicate seamlessly during joint operations regardless of the manufacturer of their equipment.

This capability is fundamental for saving lives and property, and agencies nationwide recognize its importance. Two issues, however, often make agencies hesitate to adopt P25 technology. First is the perceived high cost of P25 equipment and its implementation; second is the advent of long-term evolution (LTE) broadband technologies in public safety…

Sepura Launch SmartView, Combining Indoor and Outdoor Location Reporting

Sepura Launch SmartView, Combining Indoor and Outdoor Location Reporting

The application will provide a significant operational advantage to organisations operating complex sites such as airports, utilities plants and sports stadiums, as well as those working in public safety.

Sepura have added to their portfolio of powerful AppSPACE applications for mission critical organisations with SmartView, a unique application that allows team leaders to get a real time view of their team’s indoor or outdoor location.

The application will provide a significant operational advantage to organisations operating complex sites such as airports, utilities plants and sports stadiums, as well as those working in public safety…

Public Safety Advocate: FirstNet Tribal Successes, Interoperable PTT and Data, AT&T and FirstNet Authority Move Forward

The US Department of the Interior recently conducted a series of webinars to highlight advances within the various Tribal communities. I was most interested in the FirstNet portion of the webinar which was in a panel format. Hosted by FirstNet (Built with AT&T), this segment was entitled, “FirstNet—Transforming First Responder Communications and Extending Connectivity in Tribal Communities.”

This presentation was well organized and speakers from several Tribes took turns describing their Tribal lands, difficulties in providing public-safety communications, and the difference FirstNet (Built with AT&T) has made to all their nations.

They discussed how FirstNet has helped them in many areas of their public-safety communications by building out Band 14 on Tribal lands and, especially during covid outbreaks

Will a cyberattack take down next-generation 911?

The upcoming generation of 911 technologies is exciting for a lot of people working in public safety today because it represents the first major upgrade in decades. 

The idea that people at the scene of an accident or a crime will be able to not only call for help, but send first responders images and videos of what’s happening, holds great promise for those who’ve been charged with keeping the public safe. But with any new technology comes new security risks, and those who are designing the new system are thinking about that, too.

One of those people is Brandon Abley, a technical issues director with the National Emergency Number Association who also sits on an NG911 working group convened by the Federal Communications Commission. In an interview with StateScoop, he explained why he expects next-generation 911, though more complex than today’s systems, to also be more secure… READ MORE

The Benefits of Z-Axis Through FirstNet

By Jeff Bratcher, Chief Network and Technology Officer, First Responder Network Authority

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11. In the aftermath of that tragedy, the public safety community pushed for its own dedicated network to address some of the communications challenges responders faced on that day. The community called for a nationwide network, one it could rely on to communicate and share information with each other during emergencies as well as their day-to-day operations.

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