(ATLANTA) – The FirstNet Engagement Workshop will provide a hands-on opportunity for your agency to engage with the First Responder Network Authority to analyze how the network's products and services can support your mission, communications capabilities, and...

PAGE, AZ — Members of the Arizona Corporation Commission told CenturyLink the company has about a month to fix service issues in Page before they take the next step that could lead to legal action against the company. According to Page's city manager, there have been...

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LISBON — After a recent problem with an AT&T maintenance outage made it impossible for the dispatchers at the county’s 911 answering centers as well as other dispatcher to communicate with each other, the county 911 Emergency Service Committee on Thursday approved...

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Western Iowa Tech's Security Institute is looking for help from the county for a major repair project. That building hosts Woodbury County's communications center and emergency management offices. The college is looking to make repairs to the...

Residents who want to receive emergency alerts from the city of Dublin will need to register by Feb. 15. The city has used Code Red for the past 11 years for its Dublin Emergency Calling System, said Lindsay Weisenauer, public-affairs officer for the city. The...

WOOD RIVER - The Wood River Police Department has recognized two key members of its staff as both Officer of the Year and Telecommunicator of the Year. Detective Brent Rombach and Records Supervisor Arron Weber were the two recognized. "Detective Rombach was...

JUPITER — From around Northlake Boulevard to the Martin County line, every town along the coast uses the same 9-1-1 dispatch and police communications service — except Tequesta. That would change under a proposal by Tequesta Police Chief Gus Medina at a...

ONTARIO – The Public Safety Radio Network (PSRN) in Ontario, a network of radio infrastructure that is used by public agencies and emergency responders in the province, is set to go silent to the public’s ears by 2023 as the network is modernized and upgraded to use...

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) — Accidental emergency calls have become a costly problem at the Brown County 911 Center. “We have to spend our time and resources on seeing where and how that call came in,” Cullen Peltier, Director of Brown County Public Safety Communications...

When former correctional officer Michelle McKeaveney's mental health spiralled into an operational stress injury (OSI), online therapy wasn't an option. Last Wednesday, however, the U of R released a new online tool for public safety personnel throughout Saskatchewan....

Bill Kerry, director of the Ithaca College Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management, discussed the creation of a Public Safety app with the Student Governance Council on Feb. 3 at a meeting held in the Public Safety office. Kerry said that...

13 hours ago   (0 Comments)Posted by: Chris NussmanThe nation’s leading 9-1-1 organization is welcoming the establishment of an independent body to encourage greater interoperability in Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) systems.
Together with other stakeholders, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) will participate in the new NG9-1-1 Interoperability Oversight Commission, an independent body that will oversee key programs related to interoperability in NG9-1-1, including the PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) Credentialing Agency (PCA) and the NG9-1-1 Forest Guide.
The PCA will address the need for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to manage secure credentials within the 9-1-1 industry. A PKI is a set of policies and certificate-issuing bodies that cooperate in establishing trust so that entities in a sensitive industry can communicate securely. The PCA is a root Certificate Authority (CA) that sits at the root of the NG9-1-1 PKI. This is the same model used by the STIR/SHAKEN system to authenticate telephone calls, and also used by the global aerospace industry, the United States cable television industry, the U.S. Federal Government and others. The PKI is required to be established under standards developed for NG9-1-1, such as the NENA i3 core services standard.
The Forest Guide is another service required by the major standards for NG9-1-1, including work published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and NENA, to help with location-based routing when the local system can’t find a destination. In NG9-1-1, a caller’s location is typically used for location-based routing to connect a caller with the correct Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). When the local system fails to find the right PSAP for a call, it will query the Forest Guide for help. Current standards envision one Forest Guide will exist for each large region, such as United States or Canada. The Federal Communications Commission’s Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture (TFOPA) has also called for a Forest Guide for the United States, with independent governance.
These new services are critically important and will require ongoing, stakeholder-driven oversight, which will be provided by the NG9-1-1 Interoperability Oversight Commission. The commission will oversee the development and operation of both services, including budgets, policies, management procedures and any fees. Seats on the commission will reflect all affected stakeholders, including 9-1-1 authorities, commercial providers, standards development groups, elected officials and 9-1-1 operators.
“This is a landmark moment for public safety,” said Brandon Abley, Technical Issues Director for NENA. “The PCA and Forest Guide are critically important services, and the Commission will make sure stakeholders can trust how they are operated. NENA will have no direct control over these entities, allowing for fully independent oversight. We’re following the exact same model used in other critical industries.”
NENA is actively soliciting volunteers to sit on the commission. An open letter with submission instructions is available here, and the bylaws for the Commission are here.