Advances Could Be Made in NG-911 This Year, Says FCC’s Furth
The U.S. has “an opportunity to truly advance the ball” on next-generation 911 this year, said FCC Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth at an APCO event Monday. NG-911 challenges remain, including getting public safety answering points (PSAPs) still relying on legacy TDM systems to update equipment, without jeopardizing their ability to continue doing their work under the present system, said Furth. He said he had just met with Rhode Island legislators and realized many PSAPs in the state are relying on 40-year-old equipment.
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Wireless companies are moving ahead with making NG-911 available to PSAPs. Furth said. The May 15 deadline by which AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have committed to making text-to-911 available (CD Dec 10/12 p1) “will be a game changer,” Furth said: It will provide the “momentum” toward PSAPs taking steps to begin to be able to accept 911 texts. For the FCC, the voluntary steps taken this year will provide guidance on what kind of regulatory approach to take, he said. If PSAPs move toward allowing texting to 911, the commission would see its role as providing regulatory clarity and filling in gaps, Furth said.
The FCC NPRM on 911 location accuracy will be critical to the transition to NG-911 because a system can’t operate if first responders don’t know where to go, Furth said. Both the issues of encouraging 911 texts and location accuracy are high priorities for the FCC and it’s “on a fast track” with both, he said.
While regulatory and funding issues remain, changes in 911 are creating excitement and spurring innovation in Silicon Valley, said David Grossman, senior technology policy adviser for Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Companies have developed applications to dispatch trained citizens to do CPR, allow residents in Santa Clara to see real-time incident information, and let law enforcement agencies send texts with maps and dispatch information to first responders. Coordination between the NG-911 and FirstNet efforts will be critical to make sure the systems work together, said Dorothy Spears-Dean, Virginia’s public safety coordinator.
Deputy General Manager T.J. Kennedy said FirstNet has made strides in the past year, beginning to hire staff (CD April 29 p12) and creating a roadmap toward creating the system. “I'm very happy to say the train has left the station,” Kennedy said. The project enters a “critical phase” this year, including beginning consultations with states over the next couple of months to develop their own plans, Kennedy said. The plans will probably be created over the next year or two, he said. The importance of providing those who put their lives at risk with the best equipment was highlighted in the past week with the shooting deaths of two Alaska state troopers and the death of a Florida Highway Patrol trooper who was struck during a traffic backup, he said. “It’s so critical we provide the right tools to help them communicate at all levels.”
As plans are put together, companies are working on the technology to allow first responders to get access to the network in different types of situations in different areas, said Richard Coupland, General Dynamics C4 Systems director-public safety market development. The challenge in urban areas will be dealing with major events like with sports that will require large numbers of law enforcement and emergency personnel able to connect to an integrated system, Coupland said at a panel on deployments. The thinking, he said, is for cell on wheels (COWs) vehicles, with mounted antennas providing connections to people in the field, to be hooked up to existing fiber in venues like stadiums have events. Companies are working on developing the system. “They're using a little, learning a little, improving a little,” Coupland said. The number of devices like handsets and tablets that will be developed by industry to connect with FirstNet will be “staggering,” Coupland predicted.
In rural and wilderness areas, Aviat Networks is examining using microwave technology to connect COWs with the network, said Randy Jenkins, director-business development. Providing an unobstructed path to the antennas could mean pre-designating areas to park the COWs where they can get clear connections. “The planning and complexity of that is not to be taken lightly,” Jenkins said.
Wearable technologies offer opportunities as part of FirstNet, said Ed Vea, a public safety communications consultant whose clients include the German IT services company, Steep. Clothing worn by firefighters could measure their vital signs, the kinds of gases and the temperature they are operating in to alert commanders if a firefighter is in trouble, Vea said. The clothing could also signal where firefighters are, if they fall a certain distance or get separated from their equipment, to get help to them more quickly, he said.
An app, Dragon Force, allows police responding to active shooter situations to be able to see on a map on their smartphones where the other officers are and be able to share photos of the suspects, said Alan Kaplan, CTO of Drakontas, which developed the application. It also lets officers take pictures at the scene and share them with other police at the scene, he said, showing a photo of a house with a red circle drawn around a window. “So instead of saying, ’the bad guy is in the left bedroom,’ you can draw it,” he said.