by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Comm Center News
MATTOON — Interim Champaign Police Chief Matt Henson, who is a past officer in Arcola and Charleston, has been appointed as the new director of the emergency communications system for Coles and Moultrie counties.
The system’s Emergency Telephone System Board voted 6-1 to appoint Henson, an Arcola native, during its regular meeting in the Coles County Emergency Communications Center. Henson will fill the director position previously held by James Calvert, who stepped down from this post in mid-September…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Comm Center News
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…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Comm Center News
Written by Benjamin Freed
Nov 4, 2021 | STATESCOOP
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 —
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Articles, Comm Center News
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…
by AllThingsECC.com | Nov 5, 2021 | Comm Center News
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…
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….
