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Chicomm Blog

Will Next Generation 911 Meet its 2020 Goals?

Posted by Lisa MacGillivray on Monday, January 9, 2017

It’s been almost a year since a coalition of national 911 organizations formed with what they called an “aggressive but achievable” goal of transitioning all emergency call systems and call centers to next generation 911 by 2020. In the months since the coalition announced its intentions, progress has been made, but the question still remains: Will next generation 911 meet its 2020 goals?dispatch_center-1.jpg

We don’t have a crystal ball handy to answer that question, but we can offer some insight about what progress has been made recently and how far the experts say there is to go.

A Little History

The NG911 NOW Coalition announced its formation in February 2016 with a press conference on Capitol Hill. The organization is led by organizations including the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA), the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCERT) and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). They’re working in cooperation with the National 911 Program and the Next Generation 911 Institute.

The coalition’s stated goal is that “by the end of the year 2020, all 911 systems and call centers in all 56 states and territories will have sufficiently funded, standards-based, end-to-end IP-based 911 capabilities, and have retired legacy 911 systems, without any degradation in service.”

At the time of the coalition’s launch, NASNA President Harriet Miller-Brown described the 2020 goal as “aggressive but achievable.”

Gap Analyses and Next Steps Report

In June 2016, the NG911 NOW Coalition issued a Gap Analyses and Next Steps report that included its priorities and action plan for meeting the 2020 timeline.

The gaps identified fell into five categories: governance, funding, technology, operations and education. They included a lack of national NG911 framework, no national deployment plan and an ongoing effort to determine exactly what the initiative will cost. The National 911 Office is conducting a cost study, but it isn’t expected to be done before the third quarter of 2017.

In terms of next steps, the coalition outlined plans to support and expand current initiatives that are already underway, including the FCC’s Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Architecture and continued development of NG911 standards.

The group also outlined plans for:

  •  A legislative strategy to promote better governance, as well as increased funding for NG911.
  • An education campaign about the benefits of NG911, the limitations of the current services and the consequences of more delays.
  •  Development of a Partners Program with other organizations that can help expedite NG911 implementation.

2016 National 911 Program Progress Report

In December 2016, the National 911 Program released its progress report for 2015, including updates on NG911. Among the findings:

  • The need for NG911 sooner rather than later was highlighted by the fact that in 2015, a record 80 percent of 911 calls came from cellular phones, compared with 16 percent from land lines. The remaining 4 percent was made up of voice over internet protocol, multiline phone systems and text-to-911.
  • Of the 46 states that reported data about their NG911 implementation:
    • 20 had a statewide plan adopted;
    • 19 had a statewide request for proposal released;
    • 18 had awarded a state contract; and
    • 17 had statewide installation and testing.

States with operational NG911 systems were defined as those that can process internet protocol-based emergency calls and can process NG911 emergency calls for all service types (landline, wireless, VoIP) using NG911 infrastructure.

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