Regional dispatch service to study potential Manchester partnership (MA)

MANCHESTER — Discussions on whether Manchester will join North Shore Regional 911 Center in Middleton will continue into next year.

In the meantime, the North Shore Regional 911 Center in Middleton will conduct a feasibility study of the potential partnership.

“It’ll be a deep dive of our current services and additional equipment they may need,” said Town Administrator Greg Federspiel. “Connectivity is a big piece of this. (They’ll also study) our volume of calls and whether they’ll need more staffing on their end.”

Selectmen voted to request the study at their meeting on Oct. 18. The study is paid for through state taxes, at no cost to the town…

First responders say they want better tech interoperability (NY)

First responders say they want better tech interoperability (NY)

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A majority of police officers and other emergency responders feel their communications technologies are capable of supporting their work, but many still say there’s a need for greater interoperability between devices, agencies and networks, according to a survey published Thursday by Verizon.

The survey, which questioned more than 3,000 cops, firefighters and emergency medical personnel, found that 70% are comfortable with existing technologies, including smartphones, mobile radios, laptops and push-to-talk devices. But 80% said that interoperability —

National 911 Program Kicks Off Computer-Aided Dispatch Assessment Project

National 911 Program Kicks Off Computer-Aided Dispatch Assessment Project

While most U.S. emergency communications centers (ECCs) use a CAD system to dispatch 911 calls and facilitate records management, few CAD system components are uniform across vendors. This can create problems transferring emergency calls and associated data, such as caller location information.

It can also create problems with the transfer of call information to first responders in the field via public safety broadband networks. These transfer functions are important capabilities for enhancing responder safety and situational awareness and is essential for the transition to Next Generation 911 (NG911) functionality…

Union representing 911 dispatchers warns of system overload due to staffing shortages (Canada)

Union representing 911 dispatchers warns of system overload due to staffing shortages (Canada)

The union representing E-Comm 911 dispatch operators says the emergency service is facing a major staffing shortage and warns the system is ill-prepared to handle a major crisis.

The Emergency Communications Professionals of B.C., CUPE Local 8911, said in a statement that that people phoning E-Comm dispatchers should be connected within five seconds or less for a 911 call, 10 seconds or less for a police emergency call, and three minutes or less for a police non-emergency call…

County 911 consolidation could be costly (OH)

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….

911 Technology Upgrade Helps Pinpoint Location of Cellphone Callers (VA)

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…