The Hunterdon County Department of Public Safety Communication Division fosters stress relief within its 27 Public Safety Telecommunicators (PST), or 911 emergency dispatchers, with visits from service dogs. Because there are multiple demands placed on each...

Community members across Erie County who know CPR are encouraged to download a new app. Saint Vincent and Erie County 911 have introduced the PulsePoint Respond mobile app. Those who sign up will receive alerts when someone nearby is in sudden cardiac...

WINNESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa (KWWL) – When you dial 911 in an emergency, the voice of the dispatcher is the first you hear. While their police, fire and EMS counterparts are considered first responders in the state of Iowa, emergency dispatchers are not. Emergency...

Owensboro-Daviess County 9-1-1 dispatch has gone online with a new computer dispatch function that is expected to reduce the time it takes to dispatch responders to fire and medical calls. City-county 9-1-1 Director Paul Nave said the dispatch center tested the...

ATLANTA (AP) — A former Georgia sheriff has been chosen to lead the state Department of Public Safety on an interim basis after its prior chief resigned in the aftermath of a cheating scandal involving state troopers. Former Tift County Sheriff Gary Vowell, who...

NENA Now Accepting McMurray Scholarship Nominations
23 hours ago   (0 Comments)Posted by: Chris NussmanNENA has established a scholarship program to honor the commitment of William “Bill” McMurray, ENP, Past President, to the mission of NENA and 9-1-1 education. The scholarship will be awarded for the NENA 2020 Conference & Expo, and covers the conference registration fee and four nights of lodging at a conference hotel (to be determined by NENA upon awarding of scholarship). Travel expenses to and from the conference and meals are not included in this award.
Please visit the scholarship webpage for information about the criteria, application procedure, and responsibilities. Click here to submit your application online. The application deadline is March 27, 2020.

ATLANTA – Almost 30% of public safety professionals surveyed by the International Wireless Communications Expo reported they are currently using drones in their operations. The responses were part of an overall industry insights report about the industry’s...

ATLANTA, Ga -- Governor Kemp's office announces that former Sheriff Gary Vowell, of Tift County, is the new Interim Public Safety Commissioner for the state of Georgia. The press release stating, today the Board of Public Safety voted unanimously to approve former...

KINGSTON, R.I. — Feb. 19, 2020 — The University of Rhode Island community should dial 9-1-1 to report any emergency, on- or off-campus, effective immediately. The former Kingston Campus emergency number (401-874-2121) will remain in service for the foreseeable future...

Free Webinar on Women’s Health in 9-1-1
1 hour ago   (0 Comments)Posted by: Chris NussmanWomen’s Health in 9-1-1Thursday, March 12 | 1PM Eastern (live) or On-DemandFREE! Click here to register!
 Join NENA for the the latest edition of the Women in 9-1-1 (WIN) webinar series! This webinar focuses on women’s health and wellness issues in the PSAP. Join our experts as they share a wealth of information based on real-life experiences that can help you on your path to good health and help you understand the links between health, attitude, and performance. In this hour-long session, we’ll discuss issues including:
Tips for healthy eating during an 8-, 10-, or 12-hour shift;
Pointers for meal preparation; and
Suggestions for exercise during down times.
Presenters: Laurie Anderson, ENP – Charlotte County (FL) Sheriff’s Office | Athena Butler – Denver (CO) 9-1-1
CEUs: Attend this webinar and receive one-half ENP re-certification point towards the ten-point maximum for NENA courses in the Professional Development CEU/Course Credits section.
Can’t attend on the 12th? Register now and you will receive an email after the live presentation with instructions for accessing the on-demand webinar archive.
Webinar Access Info: Dial-in and web-access details provided automatically via email upon registration.

Gold Line Telecommunicator Scholarships Now Available
23 hours ago   (0 Comments)Posted by: Chris NussmanNENA is happy to announce the availability of this year’s Gold Line Telecommunicator Continuing Education Scholarships!
This scholarship opportunity is open to any telecommunicator, call taker, or dispatcher with at least one year of experience and in good standing with his or her current employer. Supervisory and other managerial personnel are not eligible for this award. Each Telecommunicator Continuing Education Scholarship recipient receives the following:
Complimentary registration to the NENA 2020 Conference & Expo
Complimentary registration for a one-day pre-conference course of choice at NENA 2020
A $1,000 travel stipend

To be eligible for a scholarship, you must complete and submit the scholarship application and provide a current resume. Applications will be accepted through March 27, 2020. Scholarship winners will be notified no later than mid-April.Click here to apply for a scholarship.

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Tuesday, Fitch & Associates LLC presented a five-year study to Peoria City Council. Consultants compiled five years of data from 911 calls along with Fire and Advanced Medical Transport system information. From their findings, they...

NENA Statement on NEAD Decommissioning
7 hours ago   (0 Comments)Posted by: Chris NussmanOn February 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was publicly notified by the National Emergency Address Database (NEAD) administrator, NEAD LLC, that the NEAD had been fully decommissioned and would not be made available to the public safety community.
 NEAD was originally envisioned in the Roadmap for Improving E911 Location Accuracy, which was agreed upon by the four major wireless carriers, NENA and APCO in 2014. One of the provisions of the roadmap called for establishing a new service, the NEAD, within 36 months of adoption of the roadmap. The NEAD was to be a database of unique addresses of wireless beacons, such as WiFi access points, and a dispatchable location associated with each of them. Wireless devices could then determine which address a 9-1-1 caller was associated with by evaluating which access points they were near. Standards for the NEAD were developed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), and major US wireless carriers stood up the NEAD, with FCC approval for its privacy and security plan, according to targets agreed-upon in the 2014 roadmap.
 Unfortunately, as reported to the FCC in 2019, the NEAD program ran into a host of logistical issues in provisioning of database information and underperformed in testing, indicating that the program was not sustainable and would not service public safety’s needs. Even in relatively optimistic test conditions, the ATIS Test Bed reported that NEAD provided a correct dispatchable location for less than 50% of calls and reported either no address or an incorrect address for about 25% of calls. This, compounded with the logistical issues NEAD faced in collecting and provisioning initial address information for WiFi hotspots, led for broad industry support falling for the program, including among the NEAD steering and technical advisory committees in which NENA, APCO and the major wireless carriers all participate.
 We note that the wireless technology ecosystem has changed considerably since the 2014 roadmap was established. At that time, we did not have special emergency location services methods built into major mobile operating systems and we did not have market-ready barometric-sensing altitude measurement systems available to consumer smartphones, let alone whatever the future holds. The market has evolved to provide solutions that may be used to fulfill the need that the NEAD was originally envisioned for, and potentially at a commercial scale that far exceeds what the 2014 roadmap had ever envisioned.
 While supportive of the NEAD’s objectives, NENA was skeptical of the NEAD approach from the beginning, and accordingly insisted on the inclusion of several other guarantees in the 2014 roadmap. Despite our skepticism, we are disappointed that the NEAD approach has proven unsuccessful. Civic address—and indeed, the “door to knock on”—remain a crucial long-term goal for 9-1-1, but we cannot shortcut the path to accurate, sustainable, actionable location information. NENA is committed to ensuring public safety is provided with the best possible 9-1-1 location information and will remain vigilant in overseeing industry progress toward this goal.
 We thank those who strove to make the NEAD a success.

The Polk County Commission decided as 2019 was coming to a close to spend a big chunk of money in an effort to ensure that 911 radio communications would work smoothly in the future. The unanimous vote at the end of 2019 to approve a contract with Motorola for new...

Podcast interview about what it's really like to be a 9-1-1 Dispatcher

WEST DES MOINES — You learn something new every day, and today that new fact for some of us is that 911 dispatchers aren’t recognized as first responders. Dispatchers sometimes hear the worst of the worst. “Things that you hear are not normal things people...

DENVER, Colo. -- When a cop receives a call about a suspect with a gun from dispatch, their mind starts racing. “You start going over tactics in your mind. You start walking through the worst-case scenario, typically, of how you’re going to respond to and handle this...

Cell service on the Red Cliff tribe’s reservation has improved significantly after a 300-foot cell tower became fully operational recently. The tribe is the first in the country to construct a tower as part of a nationwide public safety broadband network for emergency...

 911 dispatchers experience some of the same trauma as first responders, but many of them don’t have the same access to trauma resources or training. Margie Gemende and Kristine Harnes know what it’s like to talk to strangers through life and death situations –...