Now more than ever, first responders and public safety officials are recognizing the need to take 911 into the cloud. But in an industry where seconds can mean the difference between life and death, many public safety departments are hesitant to take risks on new cloud-based technologies.
However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the limitations of their current systems. The need for increased resilience in the face of outages or natural disasters, a desire for better location data and the benefits of introducing more ways of communicating with first responders via text or video are pushing some 911 systems into the cloud.
Making the call
The first 911 call was made only 40 to 50 years ago, said Robin Erkkila, a 911 solutions engineer at software company Bandwidth.
Although it appears straightforward on the surface, dialing 911 requires a number of parties to interact, from telecommunications providers and device manufacturers to local governments and first responders.
When a 911 call is placed in the modern era, it probably goes first to a cell phone carrier, then to the 911 network normally operated by state governments, where it’s then routed to a public safety answering point, or PSAP, said Brandon Abley, director of Technology for the National Emergency Number Association. “That’s where someone answers your call and dispatches somebody,” he said. “And then you finally have people in the field. That’s the fifth domain where we have to get the information out to the terminal and the firefighters.”
At each point in this process, some form of technology is involved, whether it’s checking a caller’s location or identifying the nearest fire station.
Basically what happened is that since the ‘70s and ‘80s, the technology there hasn’t changed a great deal.
The challenge is that the technology supporting most 911 systems is often outdated. “Basically what happened is that since the ‘70s and ‘80s, the technology there hasn’t changed a great…