Industry
Council Curious about How Automatic Aid for Fire Crews Will Impact Dispatch Systems
August 4, 2011REDDING, Calif. — Redding officials have already learned they can’t use volunteer firefighters to make up for a critical shortage of paid professionals. Now, some City Council members want to explore whether an automatic dispatch agreement with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection would help.
Read full articleEshoo Pushes Funding Bill so 9-1-1 Dispatchers Can Accept Photos, Videos & Text Messages
August 4, 2011Someday soon, a person whose house is being robbed will be able to text 911 for help while hiding inside a closet or send police dispatchers a cellphone video of the thief driving away. As a group of Peninsula cities are moving to implement “Next-Generation 9-1-1” systems that allow emergency dispatch centers to accept photos, videos and text messages that have become standard fare for many cellphone users, Rep. Anna Eshoo is working to advance the systems on a national level.
Read full articleFCC Announces Spectrum-Sharing Agreements with Canada & Mexico
August 2, 2011WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FCC has reached arrangements with Industry Canada and Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transportation for sharing commercial wireless broadband spectrum in the 700 MHz band along the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican border areas.
Read full articleL.A. County Starting over on Emergency Communications System
August 1, 2011LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of millions in federal funds are at risk and years of planning are scrapped over concerns that the project’s nearly completed contract violates state rules on how it must be structured and awarded.
Read full articleNorthern Middlesex Eyes Regional 9-1-1 Service
August 1, 2011LOWELL, Ma. — With Greater Lowell cities and towns facing budget challenges because of steep declines in state aid in recent years, they have been forced to become more creative about how to achieve cost savings. One solution Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration has aggressively promoted to help municipalities achieve budget efficiencies is regionalization.
Read full articlePrioritizing 9-1-1 Calls Will Get Review in Riverside
August 1, 2011RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Riverside County’s emergency dispatch system treats all 9-1-1 calls as life-threatening emergencies and deploys firefighters and ambulances, a practice that emergency providers call potentially wasteful and dangerous.
Read full articleSwatting 9-1-1: Hoax Calls Add Pressure, danger
August 1, 2011PASSAIC COUNTY, N.J. — A California couple with a 2-year-old daughter is awakened late at night by heavily armed police storming their home after a false report of a shooting. A Texas family is stunned when officers with automatic weapons respond to their house expecting a drug-fueled murderer who is demanding $50,000 in exchange for hostages. And a Wyckoff neighborhood is put on lockdown as the Bergen County SWAT team shoots tear gas into what proves to be a home occupied only by a cat. In each case, the people who wound up in the crosshairs were actually victims of a dangerous and increasingly common hoax known as “swatting,” so called because a bogus emergency call prompts the response of a SWAT team.
Read full articleVirginia Tech Campus Addresses Now Standardized
August 1, 2011BLACKSBURG, Va. — In a move to imporve emergency response to the campus and working in collaboration with Blacksburg officials and campus and town police, Virginia Tech University has implemented standardized addresses for all campus buildings.
Read full articleCounties Will Save $3 Million on 9-1-1 Switch
August 1, 2011WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. — Westmoreland County and two of its neighbors won’t have to pick up the tab on implementation of a new switching system for the 9-1-1 emergency dispatch system, and as a result, each will save nearly $1 million.
Read full articleNYC Emergency Communications Director Quits Before Revamp
August 1, 2011NEW YORK — The expert hired to rescue the city’s effort to build a new 911 system is leaving his job after less than a year and long before the new emergency communications network is ready.
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