by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Comm Center News
LISBON — County 911 officials continue to look at public-safety answering point (PSAP) consolidation for the county, but funding it could be costly.
Members of the 911 Emergency Service Committee held their quarterly meeting Thursday at the county EMA building, a meeting which included Steve Haberman and Stacy Banker who joined the meeting online from Chicago. Both are from Mission Critical Partners LLC, the company hired to study the idea of consolidating the PSAPs.
Haberman said they had met both virtually and visited in person at the county’s current 911 locations. They are continuing to collect data. Some of the things being considered is the budgets of the current operations 95 percent of which is personnel and benefits, the numbers of calls handled, the current equipment and what radio equipment will be needed to make it work….
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 4, 2021 | Comm Center News
Alexandria’s 911 center launched a major upgrade Wednesday that can pinpoint a caller’s exact location and dispatch help faster in an emergency.
While Uber drivers and food delivery services can find a customer’s exact location using their cellphone, most 911 centers still cannot. The industry is plagued with outdated technology that relies on cellphone towers to estimate a caller’s location.
The city’s new partnership with RapidDeploy adds cloud-based technology, which utilizes data from a caller’s cellphone to help determine the location of the emergency more accurately than the older technology…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 4, 2021 | Comm Center News
Seattle recognizes 911 dispatchers as critical members of the City’s public safety response
Hiring incentives have resulted in 10-fold increase over five-day period for applicants and inquiries for 911 dispatcher positions
SEATTLE (Nov. 4) – Mayor Jenny A. Durkan issued on Oct. 29 an emergency order that provides $10k – $25k hiring bonuses to Seattle Police Officers and to 911 dispatchers at the Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC). Within five days of declaring the new hiring incentive, the CSCC has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of applicants and inquiries for 911 dispatcher positions. More than 35 applications and inquiries have been received by the CSCC in the five days since the announcement.
“In Seattle, we recognize that our 911 dispatchers are the first, first responders taking hundreds of thousands of calls. When any resident or business calls the 911 emergency line, it is our dispatchers who are available 24/7 to answer calls. Thanks to these new hiring incentives, we are able to recruit and train more dedicated professionals to help residents in crisis and help to dispatch the right response. We are moving quickly to immediately recruit the best of the best to serve as 911 dispatchers in Seattle,” said Mayor Jenny A. Durkan…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 4, 2021 | Comm Center News
TULSA, Oklahoma – A Tulsa man is charged in a hit-and-run crash that killed a 911 dispatcher.
27-year-old Cody Carrell is charged with manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident.
Investigators say Carrell ran a red light in October near Admiral and Utica, and t-boned Mary Byers, a 911 dispatcher.
Officers say Carrell took off after the crash, but eventually turned himself in… READ MORE
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 4, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
During a mass shooting, the ECC will be overwhelmed with calls. There will be calls from persons involved in the incident, friends and family of those affected, and potentially the shooter. The telecommunicator must process calls quickly to obtain as much information as possible.
Everyone knows the most crucial piece of information in any call is the location. For mass shootings, this means more than just the location of the incident. Responders need to know the exact location of the shooter. Obtain location within locations. If the caller indicates the shooter is in the breakroom, ask where the breakroom is inside the building. An updated location of the shooter is also essential. As officers enter the location, they need to know where the shooter is in the building…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 4, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
4.9 GHz
As many are aware, last year the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided public safety was not making sufficient use of the 50 MHz of spectrum in the 4.9-GHz band the Commission had made available to the public-safety community for Wi-Fi-type services starting in 2002.
The FCC’s idea was to assign the spectrum to each state and each state could then award a master lease for the spectrum. The successful leaseholder would then be able to determine how the spectrum would be used within that state, and supposedly protect existing public-safety users of the spectrum.
The Public Safety Spectrum Alliance (PSSA) filed a number of comments and then filed a request for stay to prevent the FCC from moving forward with its intended plan. In 2021, the new FCC implemented the stay order and to a limited extent, began permitting public safety to once again license systems for use in the 4.9-GHz band…
