https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Events
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Events
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • WHY ATTEND
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Registration Opens April 2019-Join Our Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

View From The Top


Commentary

Help wanted: Working together to harness the power of data for 911

Help wanted: Working together to harness the power of data for 911

  • Written by Jackie Mines
  • 18th January 2019

Your input is requested on all aspects of the draft 911 Data & Information Sharing: A Strategic Plan. Go to https://www.911.gov/project_strategicplanningfor911data.html for more information and to download a copy of the draft available for public comment. Input will be accepted at [email protected] beginning January 18, 2019, and all comments are requested no later than February 1, 2019. 

As a society, data from nearly everything we interact with each day informs what we have, what we need and how we can continue to evolve and improve. Public-safety data provides the evidence and justification needed for decisions related to funding, staffing, performance, improvements and innovations.

This information also provides insight regarding the challenges in 911 service today, such as location accuracy, cross-jurisdictional call routing and continuity of service during surge periods. How the public interacts with 911 is continuously evolving, and data will be key in helping 911 leaders anticipate and address future challenges.

The significantly different governance, management and funding structures of 911 systems nationwide make it difficult to envision a data-collection, data-management, and data-sharing system that will be easily adopted by the 911 community as a whole. In addition, a lack of a single coordinating or regulating body at both the local and national levels increases the amount of effort needed to motivate local 911 centers to adopt data-sharing practices and standards.

Regardless of the challenges that will need to be surmounted, the 911 community has acknowledged the need for usable data and can look to the successes of other industries—for example, emergency medical services—in tackling this issue.

What Data Challenges Exist?

There is no question that data is essential, so, what is the issue? Collecting data, managing it, and sharing the right information with the right people at the right time is complex. A lot of data accompanies every 911 call; how does the 911 telecommunicator responsible for processing the call quickly identify the most relevant and useful information?

And that is just beginning of the questions. Once the call is over, where does the data from that call go? If the data needs to go to a PSAP in another jurisdiction, what is the most efficient way to get it there? What are the various decisions the data can inform? Where does it live? Who has the “right” to access it? How do you protect it?

These questions can be even more ominous when working with a diverse set of entities that may share a common mission or purpose but have very different functions, processes, technical systems, and organizational structures.

The 911 community is grappling with these very issues now more than ever. Fundamentally, 911 is a local service; therefore, 911 environments naturally have operated on the basis of insular data. As a result, the current landscape is a mosaic of primarily independent data silos.

This decentralized and individualized 911 environment makes it difficult to pinpoint necessary data-management and data-sharing tools that would pose value to the 911 community as a whole. Even if tools were established, the vast differences among 911 environments across the country may make it nearly impossible to motivate local 911 centers to adopt data-sharing practices and standards.

In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture (TFOPA), identified the lack of standardized and shared data as a concern. In response to this, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a Request for Information (RFI) asking the 911 community to identify the data capabilities and tools it needs. RFI responses pointed to a need for data to help facilitate the transition to next-generation 911 (NG911), and to improve day-to-day operations (within and beyond jurisdictional boundaries), regardless of where a jurisdiction may be in its transition to NG911.

As the 911 industry transitions to NG911, 911 stakeholders require data that lets them analyze and evaluate their administrative, operational, and technical needs and capabilities. To ensure equivalent and equitable comparisons, the analysis and evaluation must be conducted against industry standards and requirements that support NG911 capabilities.

Today, not every jurisdiction has access to the data it needs to plan for NG911, such as technical data regarding systems in use. Without such data, it is difficult for governmental organizations to approve, plan and implement funding programs that help jurisdictions progress toward this transformational, IP-based 911 technology.

How Can We Address the 911 Data Dilemma?
“Developing a data strategy that will help accomplish the needs of today while being flexible enough to allow for future data is a difficult, but critical step toward improving 911.” – Gordon Vanauken, ENP, PMP, PMI-APC, Senior Technology Specialist, Mission Critical Partners

To address the TFOPA recommendation and the multiple RFI responses from 911 leaders across the country, NHTSA’s National 911 Program convened a working group that represents a cross section of the broader 911 community: 911 authorities, industry associations, system providers, and others.

Starting with a blank page, members were tasked with determining the list of tasks to establish a nationally uniform 911 data collection system, including considerations for how this effort should be conducted. Through facilitated engagements, the stakeholders constructed a strategic plan intended to help the broader 911 community resolve how to overcome today’s hurdles and achieve certain 911 data-related goals. This was not an easy process. It took concerted time to address fundamental factors and key questions, such as:

  • What kind of data do the 911 industry need? Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) data, operational data, administrative data? What data should be categorized as “operational,” and how is that different from “administrative” data?
  • Is there a baseline understanding and shared definition of all 911 terms? As an example, the group found that the commonly used term “system” meant something different to a 911 authority representative than it did to a vendor.
  • What are the appropriate boundaries for a strategic planning effort such as this? While the team increasingly understood the 911 community’s specific data needs, they found it was too early to map out specific steps or tactics for achieving the community’s vision.

At times, the working group questioned whether the 911 community’s vision for uniform data collection and data sharing is even attainable. When considering the many complexities, interdependencies, and unknowns, certain challenges felt insurmountable.

What Can be Tackled Immediately?

What became clear is that initial efforts needed to focus at the highest strategic level, as it was too early in the planning and landscape analysis process to map out specific steps or tactics for success, because too much is unknown about the specific needs of all stakeholders. Instead, the working group’s focus shifted to articulating goals and objectives that address the 911 community’s functional needs.

These stakeholders also had to avoid letting the magnitude of the task blur the ability to recognize small-but-worthy steps toward engaging the broader 911 community in this dialogue. So, the group set out to develop a framework that could be used to generate conversation and eventually unite the 911 community toward a shared vision and strategic framework.

“The working group’s thinking evolved to embrace the mindset that this strategic plan is not about a singular product or approach, but rather a collection of strategic objectives needed to create an information sharing environment,” according to David Rathburn, PMP, a senior consultant at Dynamic Pro, Inc. (DPI) and a member of the DPI/MCP Project Team.

Over the course of the last year, stakeholders developed a draft strategic plan that strives to peel away the initial layers of this intricate issue. This draft document, 911 Data & Information Sharing: A Strategic Plan, presents to the 911 community five proposed 911 data goals, objectives, and various questions to consider when envisioning how to accomplish the proposed objectives.

It Takes a Village

While the makeup of the working group was structured to represent as many perspectives, associations and technical experts within the 911 community as possible, it now looks to the individuals across the nation who also address these issues each day. The working group’s request is that 911 and public safety representatives from all different roles within 911 review the suggested strategy to provide input and fresh perspectives toward this draft strategic plan.

After nearly a year of discussing the challenging topics at hand, the working group hopes to have captured the most important key goals and objectives that—once agreed upon—will set a clear path to address this challenging-but-much-needed future for 911.

But greater input is needed from those who will be impacted daily by 911 data policies. The complexity of this project resulted in it meaning many things to many people, depending on the frame of reference. The bottom line is that 911 data is most meaningful when we all discuss and agree on the most crucial data elements and a shared definition of those elements.

Jackie Mines is a communications consultant for Mission Critical Partners. Jackie advises federal, statewide and local clients advancing their NG911 strategic planning efforts and implementation, as well as contributes to interoperability emergency communications, and state and national policy development.

Mission Critical Partners and Dynamic Pro, Inc have teamed to support a number of recent NHTSA initiatives, including revising guidance on NG911 planning and legislative language development, and building an NG911 roadmap. The team currently helps NHTSA engage the 911 community toward the finalization of 911 Data & Information Sharing: A Strategic Plan.

 

Tags: homepage-featured-4 Commentary Dispatch/Call-taking Interoperability NG-911 PSAP Commentary Public Safety Standards State & Local Government View From The Top Commentary

Related


  • Anterix inks $50 million deal with San Diego Gas & Electric to support 900 MHz private LTE system
    Anterix this week announced a $50 million deal with San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) that will result in the utility becoming the license holder for 900 MHz broadband spectrum that will be used to support a private LTE network that will support smart-grid and wildfire-mitigation initiatives. For Anterix, the SDG&E contract is the company’s […]
  • Newscan: White House says 9 fed agencies, 100 companies hit by SolarWinds hack
    Newscan: White House says 9 fed agencies, 100 companies hit by SolarWinds hack
    Web Roundup Items from other news organizations White House says 9 fed agencies, 100 companies hit by SolarWinds hack Pressure builds to name permanent FCC chair New Orleans police moves records system to the cloud with Hexagon St. Louis officials call for top-down review of 911 system after TV investigation Both sides of the mic: […]
  • Redefining communications for today’s mobile workforces
    Communicating with personnel was already a challenge for companies with workers in the field, deskless staff who travel, as well as widespread workforces in siloed divisions and office locations. Now that COVID-19 has all but eradicated traditional in-person relationships and many in-office team members are now working remotely, keeping everyone synced is an even more […]
  • Hi-tech sewer can help safeguard public health, environment and economies
    In the wake of the coronavirus, economic recovery is top of mind for all city leaders, the majority of whom believe that investing in infrastructure and technology can spur a rebound. Yet current analyses indicate that we only have funding available to cover approximately 57 percent of infrastructure system improvements through 2029, leaving an investment gap of $2.6 […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Newscan: Tyler Technologies to buy NIC in $2.3 billion market-shaking deal
  • Enterprises prepare T-Band applications to alter systems after lengthy FCC freeze
  • Water-utility hack could inspire more intruders
  • AI ups the ante for IoT cybersecurity

Commentary


Ransomware? Let’s call it what it really is: extortionware

21st February 2021

Redefining communications for today’s mobile workforces

18th February 2021

Hi-tech sewer can help safeguard public health, environment and economies

18th February 2021
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

Hytera, Motorola Solutions DMR royalty dispute to be decided by federal judge dlvr.it/Rthqp3

1st March 2021
UrgentComm

Using data to improve emergency response resources in healthcare arena dlvr.it/RtYfFJ

26th February 2021
UrgentComm

3 security flaws in devices and IoT that need fixing dlvr.it/RtYRxm

26th February 2021
UrgentComm

Newscan: America’s creaky payment infrastructure is showing cracks dlvr.it/RtTzBD

25th February 2021
UrgentComm

California PD: ‘Game-changing’ Live911 streaming of emergency calls accelerates responses dlvr.it/RtPgXS

24th February 2021
UrgentComm

Why Tuscon is building its own 4G network dlvr.it/RtPDG5

24th February 2021
UrgentComm

SolarWinds attackers lurked for ‘several months’ in FireEye’s network dlvr.it/RtP07s

24th February 2021
UrgentComm

Buffalo’s 48 hours to navigate a mission-critical transition to remote work dlvr.it/RtNwfl

24th February 2021

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X