by AllThingsECC.com | Jul 26, 2019 | Comm Center News
JEFFERSON — The county’s 911 dispatchers are following a new set of procedures which involves callers being asked more questions, and officials want the public to know what the change is all about and that it is not delaying the time it takes to dispatch an ambulance.
County 911 was established in 1990. Up until a state-mandated change was implemented in November in Ashtabula County, dispatchers largely focused on what the emergency is, where it happened and sending first responders to the location.
In 2016 the state mandated that all public safety answering points provide emergency medical dispatching. This means that dispatchers ask callers certain questions on medical calls and based upon the answers they receive they then stay on the line and tell callers what steps to take — such as how to do a Heimlich maneuver during a choking incident or to administer an aspirin during a potential heart attack — until an ambulance arrives.
Some agencies, such as Community Care Ambulance, have long been following the new rules while others, like the county’s 911 system, have only recently stepped on board.
Ashtabula County 911 has received more than 16,300 calls from January to present and of those calls more than 2,500 required emergency medical dispatching.
by AllThingsECC.com | Jul 26, 2019 | Comm Center News
“Because these calibration processes would, by necessity, share detailed location information with a third party outside of the context of a 9-1-1 call, they would require user consent, such as by providing the user an option to enable/disable such processes,” AT&T said in an ex parte filing. “While such Z-axis solutions may produce vertical location results within the FCC’s proposed 3-meter accuracy target when enabled, these solutions would very likely produce results outside this target if users declined permissions for these processes to operate.
Therefore, the FCC should consider whether these options for Z-axis solutions would be able to comply with the commission’s proposed vertical accuracy rules or whether it should consider adopting a more flexible vertical accuracy requirement, AT&T said.
In June, AT&T argued against requiring floor-level data and agreed with Google that the FCC use a timetable for increasingly demanding Z-axis call coverage and/or geographic coverage requirements. “Given the variances in building structural characteristics and terrain, AT&T continues to believe that imposition of a floor level data requirement is infeasible at this time,” AT&T said in its reply comments to the FCC’s proposed rules. The AT&T ex parte filing is here.
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by AllThingsECC.com | Jul 26, 2019 | Comm Center News
Jeff Cohen, chief counsel for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, explained in his testimony that the 6 GHz band is used for a variety of critical services. “Public safety uses the 6 GHz band mainly as backhaul for 9-1-1 dispatch and first responder radio communications, which is especially important in rural areas where the alternative to microwave would be prohibitively expensive or impractical fiber deployment, if it is even available,” he said.
Cohen, one of eight witnesses who testified at the hearing, said the prospect of sharing this band comes down to two questions — the potential for interference and whether a sharing mechanism can be reliably demonstrated in advance to ensure that there will be no interference to public safety.
Concerning the potential for interference, the unlicensed community — which includes Google, Facebook and other wireless and online heavyweights — submitted technical showings that do not appear to fully appreciate the real-world implications of the deployment of hundreds of millions of unlicensed devices, or the fact that public-safety microwave links are designed to ensure high reliability and availability — a downtime of no longer than 30 seconds per year, Cohen said.
“APCO remains unconvinced that there is any way unlicensed devices could share this spectrum without being required to use some form of an automated frequency coordination mechanism,” he said. “Additionally, any automated frequency coordination system must undergo substantial testing and be proven in advance to be effective at preventing interference to public-safety communications. Further, public safety must be assured that any interference that does occur will be rapidly resolved.”
Cohen said that the spectrum bands housing public-safety operations are not the appropriate arena to deploy new, unproven spectrum sharing and frequency coordination methods. “Fixed service systems such as those relied upon by public safety for mission-critical communications are not designed to detect interference and are incapable of attributing it to a particular source,” he said. “Thus, it is important to be especially mindful of the fact that if the sharing mechanism fails, or consumers or equipment manufacturers disable or misuse the interference protection mechanisms, there is no way to reverse the resulting interference. There will be hundreds of millions of unlicensed devices out in the stream of commerce, and should interference occur to public-safety microwave (which we must assume will occur), it will be very difficult if not impossible to identify and stop the interfering device. Worse, public safety will have no alternative communications path. That would mean the irreparable loss of communications critical to public safety.”
Julius P. Knapp, chief of the FCC’s Office Of Engineering and Technology, addressed 6 GHz and public safety in his testimony, implying the commission is aware and working on technical analysis for the band.
“This spectrum is particularly well positioned for the expansion of the Wi-Fi spectrum that is already available in the 5 GHz region,” Knapp said. “This spectrum is heavily used by utilities, public safety and commercial wireless providers for point-to-point microwave services, as well as by others. We’re working through some complex technical issues, both internally and with outside stakeholders.”
“While there are critical incumbent services in this band that must be adequately protected, this band includes 1,200 megahertz of spectrum that should be investigated for potential unlicensed and licensed use,” said Scott Bergmann, CTIA senior vice president, legislative affairs.
APCO’s Cohen also used the hearing to address the UHF T-band spectrum at 470 – 512 MHz.
“… Given everything that would have to be set into motion, including all the actions the FCC would need to take, and with nowhere for public safety to move to, the right thing to do is for Congress to repeal this provision,” Cohen said to lawmakers. “There would be no budgetary impact with repeal. Further, there has been little if any interest expressed by potential bidders for this spectrum, making the prospect of any new spectrum efficiencies or significant auction revenue slim, contrary to the typical goals of spectrum auctions. Further, it remains APCO’s position that it would be unfair to ask public safety for anything in exchange for repeal of this provision.”
Finally, Cohen addressed 5G and its benefits to public safety. He noted how a 5G hot spot inside a building could provide highly accurate indoor 9-1-1 dispatchable location-quality data and improve wireless emergency alerts.
“if we don’t upgrade the nation’s 9-1-1 systems, 5G will never reach its full potential,” he said. “While 5G technology will tremendously enhance the communications capabilities of the general public and first responders, it will only further widen the gap between those capabilities available to the public and what’s possible for 9-1-1. Unless we modernize the 9-1-1 system, all these innovations are lost at the door of the 9-1-1 center.”
Cohen’s full testimony is here.
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by AllThingsECC.com | Jul 25, 2019 | Comm Center News
Five new women will lend comforting words and lifesaving instructions over the telephone soon as they begin new careers as dispatchers.
Laquanda Craig, Ariel Johnson, Seneca Horne, Lisa Ropp and Christy Montgomery were honored during a modest, but well-attended graduation ceremony Thursday.
Not only are those women, and all the other dispatchers at the Montgomery Department of Emergency Communications, a lifeline for callers, but they’re also a link for first responders, Montgomery Fire Rescue Chief of Staff John Petrey said.
“Every contact you make is an opportunity to make a difference in somebody’s life and if you didn’t want to make a difference, you wouldn’t be here,” he said to the graduates. “When I say your point of contact, I don’t just mean the citizens. Because the people you also influence are these ladies and gentlemen out here, some are in uniform, some are not, but they all are here to deliver emergency services to the city of Montgomery and everyone who passes through it. You are definitely their light in a dark tunnel.”
by AllThingsECC.com | Jul 25, 2019 | Articles, Comm Center News
From 5G networks to specially equipped communications trucks and drones, the nation’s first responders have a growing arsenal of tech tools that keep them communicating during the worst kinds of emergencies.
BY JOHN KNOPF
One of the biggest challenges first responders face in emergency situations is receiving reliable information: Where is a fire heading? When is backup arriving? What equipment do they have? Have residents been evacuated? For first responders there’s the constant issue of terrain and topography, which can impede communications and complicate existing challenges when access to data is critical. Additionally, cell towers often become congested or damaged in emergencies, impairing communications between first responders, commanders and supporting agencies.
This article was written by John Knopf and appears on govtech.com dated July 24, 2019. To read the full article please click on the button below.
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