On Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 1:00 p.m. EST, the transmission method for the notification of alarm events from Vector Security, subsequent responses from the City of Richmond’s (Va.) 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), and bi‐directional updates from both entities were moved into a production environment using International Justice and Public Safety Network (Nlets) message “wrappers” around the payload, Nlets‐assigned message keys and the use of S‐ORI (originating agency identifiers) addresses for routing purposes. Following the launch of the new transmission method and new features, the alarm interface exchange traffic between Vector Security and the City of Richmond has worked flawlessly and efficiently with near instantaneous delivery of messages between the two entities. The payload (data used by the exchange) was approved as an ANSI standard on Jan. 15, 2009 (Alarm Monitoring Company to PSAP CAD External Alarm Interface Exchange, APCO/CSAA 2.101.1‐2008).

By incorporating Nlets‐assigned S‐ORIs for message routing purposes, there is no longer a need to allocate network engineering time at Nlets or the state control points to generate Network Address Translation (NAT) rules, as all messages are now routed to the intended destination based on the ORI assigned to each agency. Once initiated for transmission, messages are being delivered from end‐to‐end in less than two seconds, according to benchmarks conducted by the City of Richmond.

With the assignment of Nlets message keys, “ALQ” for traffic originating from the alarm companies destined for 9-1-1 PSAPs, “ALR” for traffic originating from 9-1-1 PSAPs destined for the alarm companies, standard interfaces between the state control points and the 9-1-1 PSAPs’ computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems can easily be modified to accommodate these new message types. Development efforts, on the part of CAD providers that already have established interfaces to the state control points to accommodate alarm traffic exchanges just got a lot easier with the main effort now focused on mapping the alarm data to the CAD system’s call‐for‐service template and generating appropriate responses to the alarm company. By the same token, software providers for alarm monitoring companies need only write a single interface that can be reused by their alarm monitoring company customers, who are future candidates to connect to Nlets following the necessary approvals by the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) and Nlets.

The successful conversion of the External Alarm Interface Information Exchange Packet Documentation (IEPD) to the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Version 2.0 was the first project deliverable of the Public Safety Data Interoperability (PSDI) program, funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, US Department of Justice, and co-managed by the IJIS Institute and the Association of Public‐Safety Communications Officials International. An IEPD is a set of data artifacts used to support the sharing of data for a particular business purpose or, more simply, the framework on which the actual information exchange is built.

The payload was approved as an ANSI standard on Jan. 15, 2009 (Alarm Monitoring Company to PSAP CAD External Alarm Interface Exchange, APCO/CSAA 2.101.1‐2008). Several alarm monitoring companies and 911 PSAPs are ramping up to take advantage of the EAEI standard including the City of Houston PSAP and additional Virginia PSAPs. At least 85 PSAPs throughout the country have expressed interest in using the standard in the near future.

The primary goals of the External Alarm Exchange Interface project include: 1) the reduction of telephone calls between alarm monitoring companies and 9-1-1 PSAPs, 2) the elimination of miscommunication between the alarm company operators the 9-1-1 PSAP call‐takers that could have resulted in dispatch mistakes and 3) the reduction of PSAP processing time by one and a half to three minutes or more, resulting in the same reduction in response times by first responders. Collectively, these goals have increased the likelihood of law enforcement apprehensions, fires being more quickly extinguished, and more lives being saved.

For more information on the EAIE, contact Bill Hobgood, APCO International project coordinator, at hobgoodb@apcointl.org.