9-1-1 Industry Leaders Successfully Test Next Generation Technologies

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St. Cloud, MN: During the week of March 19, NENA: The 9-1-1 Association brought together twenty-three public safety technology companies for the latest in a series of Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) Industry Collaboration Events (ICE). The ICE series allows vendors to test leading-edge products and services that will advance 9-1-1 from the current voice-only, legacy 9-1-1 environment into the data-rich world of IP-based communications.

The hands-on, standards-based testing done in the lab setting at this event yielded a number of significant firsts and other meaningful results:
  • The testing of smart-device apps that interface with NG9-1-1 to provide improved caller location information to the 9-1-1 call taker;
  • The testing of capabilities that allow 9-1-1 personnel to receive data from callers, such as emergency medical information, or data about an emergency scene, such as the presence of hazardous materials or building blueprints; and
  • The testing of NG9-1-1 data exchange functions that enable seamless information sharing within 9-1-1 center systems (such as computer aided dispatch and records management) and between individual 9-1-1 centers, field responders, and other public safety entities to provide a smarter, faster emergency response.

The testing and results from ICE 7 help ensure that NG9-1-1 provides the services and the level of reliability required for IP-based, mission-critical public safety communications, while supporting accessibility to NG9-1-1 service for all citizens making requests for assistance. “Facilitating the timely migration to NG9-1-1 is one of NENA’s highest priorities,” said NENA President Renee Hardwick, ENP. “The ICE series is one of the integral ways that NENA is fostering collaboration and moving our industry forward. We thank all the participating companies for their commitment to developing and deploying NG9-1-1, and we look forward to their participation in future Industry Collaboration Events.”

“GeoComm remains committed to NENA’s vision of Next-Generation 9-1-1 and helped plan ICE 7 by co-chairing the event. Through our participation, we had the opportunity to test interoperability and adherence to standards – not just for GeoComm’s ECRF/LVF, but for all vendors attending the event,” stated Brooks Shannon, Senior Product Manager at GeoComm. GeoLynx Spatial Router – GeoComm’s ECRF/LVF – helped facilitate the testing of external apps, additional data, and data exchange using the Emergency Incident Data Document (EIDD), and participated in the first-ever interoperability tests involving additional location data discovery using the ECRF. “The high degree of collaboration among vendors was fantastic. The dedication of every participant helped make this ICE, like past events, a significant contributor to the advancement of 9-1-1,” Shannon stated.

ICE 7 participants utilized current, pending, and in-development standards for these tests, gaining knowledge that only collaborative, multi-party testing can provide. The result was a better understanding of how these emerging areas of technology interface with NG9-1-1’s core services as defined by the NENA i3 standard, the industry-consensus foundational document that governs how NG9-1-1 works. The overall test objectives of ICE 7 were met and will be the basis for the tests conducted at future events.

NENA thanks the Illinois Institute of Technology, School of Applied Technology in Wheaton, IL for hosting the last four ICEs and for allowing participants to use the network technology and facilities at the Rice Campus. Special thanks are owed to Professor Carol Davids and IIT Real-Time Communications Lab Mentor Joe Cusimano, both of whom contributed greatly to the planning and successful execution of this event.

Further details about ICE 7 are available here. Click here for additional information on the ICE series.

About GeoComm: GeoComm was founded in 1995 to provide county governments with turnkey emergency 9-1-1 development services. Over the subsequent 21 years, the company has grown to serve local, regional, statewide, and military agencies in forty-nine states, helping to keep more than 100 million people safe. Today, GeoComm has a national reputation as a leading provider of public safety GIS systems that route emergency calls to the appropriate call center, map the caller’s location on call taker or dispatcher maps, and guide emergency responders to the scene of the accident on mobile displays within police, fire and ambulance vehicles. Our NG9-1-1 GIS solutions provide GIS data quality control, transformation, and aggregation services as well NG9-1-1 system emergency call routing. To learn more about GeoComm, please visit www.geo-comm.com

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