States Making Headway on NG-911 Despite Struggle for Funding

People increasingly use cellphones to call 911 and could benefit from the ability to use video and text messages with the 911 system, said next-generation 911 backers. While no one can implement full long-term NG-911 yet, since carrier actions on IP interfaces and multimedia support aren't yet available to support full NG-911 features, some states are making progress. Public safety answering points (PSAPs) face challenges that prevent easy transmission of data and critical sharing of information that can significantly enhance the decisionmaking ability, response and quality of service provided to emergency callers, said the Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office website. It said that challenges can include the use of an older, analog-based infrastructure and equipment by PSAPs, and use of local 911 networks that can’t process calls using new communications technologies or efficiently transfer calls from one PSAP to another when call volume exceeds available resources.

In Illinois, 14 rural counties formed the Counties of Southern Illinois and have been working since 2008 to transition to NG-911. Working as a collective, the counties have been implementing small portions of NG-911 little by little, struggling for funding the whole way, said Chairman Ken Smith. Of the 19 PSAPs serving those counties, 13 are live, with four scheduled to go live this summer, he said. A statewide bill is being debated that would begin the process to implement a system over the next seven years, Smith said, but the rest of the state is at least five years behind the southern counties.

The Counties of Southern Illinois' system is capable of accepting text messages, but the cost is too high to activate that function now, nor has anyone been trained to handle such messages, said Smith. Other than obtaining funding -- a federal grant provided partial funding -- the biggest challenge was mapping the area with a geographic information system (GIS) so every system was using the same name for everything and all roads were viewed the same, he said. "Getting all of our GIS data on the same page was difficult. At county lines where my road ends and hers starts, you have to be able to tie those together. Obviously in real life, they're already tied together, but when you try to put two disparate map systems together and make all the projections match, it's hard."

Other States

Minnesota has implemented NG-911 at the state level, said Julie Anderson, Department of Public Safety Homeland Security and Emergency Management external affairs coordinator. The state just kicked off its statewide GIS for more precise location of cellphones, she said. The project is expected to take a few years to complete, Anderson said.

Pennsylvania is working on approaching the funding concern from another angle, increasing the surcharges on all landline and mobile phone bills in the state to a flat $1.65 monthly per phone bill. House Bill 911 would channel the funds through the state to be distributed to counties quarterly on a formula basis. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency would retain a 2 percent administrative fee. The fee would make Pennsylvania's the third highest 911 fee in the country. State Rep. Stephen Bloom (R) said a group of House members felt the fee was asking a lot from residents and that the state should find funding elsewhere, but it's hard to say no to something as important as public safety. While he didn't vote for the bill, it passed the House and is awaiting Senate action.

The National 911 Program has worked with the National Association of State 911 Administrators to encourage states to voluntarily share their state data to provide an updated picture of NG-911 progress across the country; 39 states and territories have provided information. Laurie Flaherty, program coordinator, said the data, from 2013, was helpful to the National 911 Program because it shows the type of assistance the states need.

Funding

Funding for advanced 911 is a persistent issue, many stakeholders said. 911 receives very little federal funding relative to other public safety services, said National Emergency Number Association CEO Brian Fontes.

Flaherty said the biggest roadblock is funding, with a side of governing issues. Her organization helps states with a grant program funded by proceeds from the FCC AWS-3 auction earlier this year, said Flaherty. “No one knew whether the auction would generate enough funding to fund all of those things" specified in legislation, she said. “But that auction was wildly successful, and so we will be receiving the funding.”

States submitting data to the NG-911 project report that the majority of 911 calls are received from cellphones. Data showed 70 percent of consumers are using cellphones to call 911, compared with 25 percent of consumers using wireline phones. Telematics, VoIP or multiline-phone systems, while in use and available nationally, add up to only 3 percent of calls to 911 from the reporting states, the report said. It's important to recognize changes and trends in technologies that consumers use, especially in emergencies, it said. In 2013, 13 of 36 reporting states released a request for proposals for defined statewide NG-911 components, 13 of 29 reporting states awarded a contract to procure NG-911 components and/or defined NG-911 functions, and nine of 30 reporting states installed/deployed and tested NG-911 parts, functions and components at the state level, the report showed.

NENA tracks state and sub-state initiatives to establish and activate emergency services IP networks that may support NG-911 functions in the future, or that are actively implementing transitional NG-911 or are aimed at pre-NG-911 actions. Fontes said the organization is working to ensure everyone understands NG-911 and its value to the public, and to increase government awareness to ensure that NG-911 is deployed across the country. State and local governments also need to contribute to the funding and ultimate success of NG-911, he said. To continue to develop the system, everyone needs to commit to deploying it, Fontes said. "Why, when 250 million calls are made each year -- and most of these calls are coming from smartphones -- why is something so critical as public safety still tethered to last century technology?" he said. "911 is a victim of its own success. Everybody knows about 911, they assume it will be there. And in reality, 911 is a very complex process."