by AllThingsECC.com | Feb 10, 2018 | Comm Center News
U.S. House members approves an amendment to Kari’s Law legislation—a measure that would require direct dialing for 911 calls made on multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) frequently used by hotels, offices and other enterprises—that awaits President Donald Trump’s signature to become law.
Happy birthday, Kari.
U.S. House members early this morning unanimously approved an amendment to Kari’s Law legislation—a measure that would require direct dialing for 911 calls made on multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) frequently used by hotels, offices and other enterprises—that awaits President Donald Trump’s signature to become law.
The late Kari Hunt—the namesake of the legislation—would have celebrated her 36th birthday today.
House members executed a voice vote on the amendment during early-morning proceedings that were conducted as the legislative body deliberated over a budget deal to end a short-lived government shutdown. The amendment to alter the effective date of the legislation was introduced early this week by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) when the Senate unanimously approved H.R. 582, the Kari’s Law bill sponsored by Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas).
Although the House passed H.R. 582 more than a year ago, it had to approve the Senate amendment to send the Kari’s Law measure to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign the legislation into law. Sources close to the situation were unsure of the timetable for the signing to occur.
The legislation would mandate that 911 callers be able to dial the emergency number directly, instead of having to include an additional number or code. On some MLTS, callers must dial an additional number—often “9”—to get an outside line to make a normal phone call, so a 911 call would require the caller to dial “9-911.”
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by AllThingsECC.com | Feb 2, 2018 | Comm Center News
SOURCE: Mission Critical Communications
DATE: February 2, 2018
An email from the president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International to its members highlighted the association’s efforts to modernize 9-1-1 and ensure that equipment and services are interoperable. The email also suggested steps members can take to improve next-generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) interoperability.
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![Hancock County’s smallest cities receive help as dispatch fees increase]()
by AllThingsECC.com | Feb 2, 2018 | Comm Center News
Four Hancock County cities will receive a break on their 2018-19 communications allocations.
The Hancock County Board of Supervisors on Monday unanimously voted to reduce the charge for county dispatch services for Corwith, Crystal Lake, Goodell and Woden — cities with populations under 500 — by 60 percent, or $11,928.42, total.
The county board decided to revert the four cities back to paying the 2016-17 rate of 15 percent of the total communications budget, while the cities of Britt, Garner, Kanawha and Klemme will remain at the 2018-19 rate of 37.5 percent.
“I’m not saying this is the greatest or wonderfulest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Jerry Tlach, county board chairman. “It was a way to start at least.”
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by AllThingsECC.com | Feb 1, 2018 | Comm Center News
SOURCE: Mission Critical Communications
DATE: January 30, 2018
During recent disasters such as the 2017 U.S. hurricanes and wildfires, public-safety answering points (PSAPs) in the disaster areas received a flood of nontraditional requests for emergency service over social media.
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by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 22, 2018 | Comm Center News
SOURCE: Mission Critical Communications
DATE: January 19, 2018
A record 48 states and territories provided information about progress toward next-generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1), annual funding and revenue, operations and other data.
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![Hancock County’s smallest cities receive help as dispatch fees increase]()
by AllThingsECC.com | Jan 8, 2018 | Comm Center News
Public safety and industry entities have weighed in on proposed regulations for a next-generation 911 (NG-911) grant program, including on who should be eligible for funding, whether tribes should be able to directly submit applications, and the formula for distributing grant.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a notice of proposed rulemaking in September that proposed awarding NG-911 grants directly to tribal organizations, rather than to them only through states (TR Daily, Sept. 21).
The NPRM proposed modifications to the E-911 Grant Program, which was established pursuant to the ENHANCE 911 Act of 2004, which allocated $43.5 million from the proceeds of the FCC’s 700 megahertz band auction.
The modifications of the regulations proposed in September were required by Congress in the NG911 Advancement Act of 2012, which was part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, which reserved $115 million for NG-911 grants from the FCC’s AWS-3 auction. Up to $110 million in actual grants will be awarded.
The NPRM “seeks comment on an approach that envisions apportioning the available grant funds across all of the states and tribal organizations, to serve 911, Enhanced 911 (E911), and NG911 purposes. However, given the total amount available for the grant program, this approach would allow for only marginal enhancements in any given area,” the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International argued in its comments in docket 170420407-7407-01. “Accordingly, the best way to use these grants is to create model deployments that demonstrate proofs of concept for fully-deployed and interoperable NG911 services in urban, suburban, and rural areas. By focusing on model NG911 deployments for a few areas, the grant program can better serve the entire country by producing blueprints for efficiently modernizing 911 systems nationwide. This should lower costs and speed implementations for systems that follow.”
APCO also said that “interoperability should be the top priority for the grant program. The NPRM’s proposal to require grant recipients to comply with current NG911 standards as listed in the Department of Homeland Security’s SAFECOM Guidance is not the best approach. The standards listed in the SAFECOM Guidance are very broad, in some cases incomplete, and unlikely to ensure interoperability, at least without costly after-the-fact integrations. Conversely, using widely deployed commercial standards will facilitate interoperability and help to expand the market so that public safety benefits from the competition and ongoing innovation in the commercial market. Thus, the Office [National 911 Program] should encourage grant applications be based upon use of widely deployed commercial standards that achieve the interoperability, innovation, and cost efficiencies that would be of most benefit to PSAPs.”
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