Steve Ambrosini, Director of Operations, IJIS Institute

Security, survivability, sustainability—these were the three concepts that participants kept coming back to during the APCO Technology Roundtable, held March 23 in Minneapolis and sponsored by TCS.

No matter what specific technology or tool was being discussed—NG9-1-1, LTE, public safety broadband, network services or CAD—the conversation would inevitably circle back around to how we secure the information and infrastructure; ensure it can survive the inevitable disaster, as well as daily use; and sustain it via staffing, maintenance, funding and upgrades in the long term.

APCO International 1st Vice President Gregg Riddle welcomed attendees on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, describing the concept of the facilitated discussion and saying, “I can’t emphasize enough the concept of interaction.”

Steve Ambrosini, director of operations for the IJIS Institute, facilitated the discussion. Participants came from Idaho, Minnesota, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin, and represented a mix of rural and urban communications systems.

The Big Picture
According to data from IJIS, approximately 80% of local agencies serve populations of less than 25,000, covering approximately 15% of the U.S. population with minimal technology resources. Approximately 20% of local agencies serve populations of 25,000–500,000, covering approximately 60% of the U.S. population with commercial software products. That means that less than 1% of local agencies serve populations of 500,000 or more, covering approximately 25% of U.S. population with mostly custom technology solutions.

NG9-1-1, Networks & More
The loosely guided discussion raised many questions that will alter the face of public safety communications in years to come.

First up, NG9-1-1: “Next Generation 9-1-1 is becoming difficult to define because it’s so big,” said Ambrosini.

“I think education in this thing is a big deal,” said John McQuillen, director of communications, Brown County Communications, Aberdeen, S.D. He made a point that areas in South Dakota have not yet upgraded to E9-1-1.

Sheriff Len Humphries Jr. of Fremont County, Idaho, said that areas in Idaho don’t yet have E9-1-1 either.

Sheriff Len Humphries, John Dejung and Chris Stucke

How calls for emergency assistance and information come into the PSAP is part of the drive behind NG9-1-1, and Humphries said that 80% of the calls into his PSAP are now wireless, “and ours is a small county,” he said.

“However a call comes in [voice, text, video], we need to move it through the communications continuum,” said Diane Lind, executive director of the Dakota Communications Center, Rosemount, Minn. “How do we want it to look? We need to get out in front and say what we want. We need to have funding mechanisms in place so that all of us can do it [not just the big agencies].”

“My vision of NG9-1-1 touches on a lot of things,” said Pete Eggimann, ENP, director of 9-1-1 services for the Minneapolis Metropolitan Emergency Services Board. “A lot we don’t know. What we do know: It will be IP-based; functions involving location validation and routing will be a public safety responsibility, sort of like we do today with MSAG; there will be a GIS component.”

John Dejung, ENP, director of Public Safety Communications for Dane County, Madison, Wis., said his area has been holding off on needed upgrades, trying to determine if NG9-1-1-capable is “good enough.”

“I don’t want to buy a box that has all kinds of capability that I can’t use,” Dejung said.

That idea was echoed by others in the room. Toivo Sari, IT manager for Cypress Creek EMS in Houston, said that he hoped APCO could help “convince the vendors to be less proprietary.”

Eggimann said that the hope with NG9-1-1 is that agencies will be able to pick and choose functionalities from different vendors. He also indicated that the i3 standard (Functional & Interface Standards for NG9-1-1) is supposed to be approved by NENA early next week, which will help make this goal a reality. (Learn more at www.nena.org/standards/technical/voip/functional-interface-NG911-i3.)

Dejung brought up the issue of data centers under NG9-1-1 and where they should be located. Should they be housed in a PSAP or should they be housed by commercial entities with their greater storage capabilities and more access points. “I’d prefer to spread the risks, spread the costs and look at this regionally.”

With this, the discussion naturally turned to leveraging resources and workload sharing.

“Consolidation is a political term,” said Eggimann, stressing instead ways to leverage technology. “If gas gets to be six bucks a gallon, and I’m paying my telecommunicators $30,000 a year and they’ve got a 30-mile commute, I’m going to lose dispatchers. We’re already scrambling to fill seats. With NG9-1-1, we may be able to create satellite call centers to provide for shorter commutes but a place with all the tools available, consolidating capabilities and equipment.”

A “virtual” PSAP concept was discussed. “Tie into the network, and you can work from anywhere,” said Eggimann.

Chris Stucke, IT manager of Brown County Communications, Aberdeen, S.D., said that if he gives his folks a laptop and a headset, they can work from anywhere.

Chris Stucke and Diane Lind

Lind said, “We can run our CAD on a laptop with aircards. That’s part of our backup system. The technology is difficult but doable. The harder thing is a shift in mindset.”

Humphries agreed that there’s a cultural issue in play. Technology change is leading to turnover, specifically with older telecommunicators, who didn’t grow up with the reliance on technology, retiring as new technology systems are introduced.

Lind brought up the other side of the culture divide: “Younger telecommunicators don’t know how to talk on the telephone,” she said. “They haven’t learned the voice-to-voice, face-to-face social interaction skills. We have to teach that.”

Public Safety Broadband
The need for increased bandwidth and the related costs to move video and data was one issue raised with regard to public safety broadband. Funding and where to locate towers and repeaters were other issues discussed in brief. Challenges differ by terrain, governance, and federal and private ownership of land and assets.

The D Block of spectrum adjacent to the designated public safety broadband spectrum was also briefly discussed. Steve Wisely, APCO International director of comm center and 9-1-1 services, made the point that the momentum exists to get the D Block reallocated to public safety, but that local agencies still need to get involved. (Learn more at www.psafirst.org.)

Narrowbanding
According to Humphries, the state of Idaho recently learned that the 700 MHz radios it rolled out just a few years ago to many responders in the state cannot be narrowbanded to 6.25 KHz emissions and will need to be replaced to meet the 2018 phase 2 narrowbanding deadline.

The radios were initially purchased using grants intended to create interoperability. “I don’t know about you,” Humphries said, “but we expect our radios to last more than five years.

Finding the monies to pay for meeting the unfunded narrowbanding mandate is just one of the concerns Humphries expressed. Reduced coverage is another major issue for Fremont County. The terrain is 80% flat and 20% mountainous, with deep gorges and gullies. Humphries said the county will need to add repeaters in addition to replacing the radios.

Learn more about the FCC’s narrowbanding mandate: https://psc.apcointl.org/tag/narrowbanding/.

Funding
How federal grants are awarded came under fire from a couple of sources: “What business is it of the federal government to pick winners and losers—and that’s really what they’re doing,” said one participant. “It doesn’t matter if my program has merit if I’m not in the right Congressional district.”

“You can’t buy what you need,” said another participant. “We couldn’t buy lightbars for our patrol vehicles, but we could buy $1,200 flashlights.”

“Let’s acknowledge the politics of it—and the economics,” said Eggimann.

The consensus: Funding for public safety technology is a contentious issue, and participants remained skeptical that a workable funding model will be found at the federal level.

The Discussion Continues

Toivo Sari (left) and Seth Sonenthal, TCS

“Today gave me a lot of good things to take back and generate discussion in my agency,” said Sari.

If you haven’t yet joined the discussion, it’s not too late. Two more Technology Roundtables will be held this year: April 11–12 at the Orlando (Fla.) Airport Marriott, and May 18–19 at the Renaissance in Washington, D.C. Learn more at http://roundtable.apcointl.org.

About the Author
Keri Losavio is the editor of Public Safety Communications, the official magazine of APCO International Inc. Contact her via e-mail.