Another Shining Accomplishment Is the NG911 Cost Study

This year, in a series of blog posts, we are revisiting some of the most impactful projects that MCP has supported over its first decade and a half of existence. The first blog focused on a project undertaken approximately eight years ago on behalf of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) to determine the state’s readiness for Next Generation 911 (NG911) service. (Click here to read the blog.)

It was a very heavy lift, but arguably pales in comparison to a project that eventually delivered the NG911 Cost Study report, which was presented to Congress by the National 911 Program in 2018. As part of the Middle-Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 Congress had requested a comprehensive investigation into the cost of deploying NG911 service nationwide.

When this project launched, no one had any firm idea regarding how to best implement NG911 service ubiquitously from coast to coast, much less what it would cost to do so. All anyone knew at the time—or at least suspected—was that NG911 represented a quantum leap forward compared with legacy 911 service, which had only evolved marginally since it was launched in 1968.

MCP subject-matter experts (SMEs), led by project manager Gordon Vanauken, worked collaboratively with the National 911 Program—and held regular meetings with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—to unravel these mysteries. One of the first steps was to create the “NG911 maturity model” that could be used to assess the various functional components and elements that collectively would result in a nationwide system of systems that would deliver NG911 service to 911 centers nationwide.

The model defined five stages—legacy, foundational, transitional, intermediate, and end state—that collectively represented the NG911 migration timeline. It was important to know where each component and element fell on the timeline and identifying the stages enabled that determination. The model proved to be a highly valuable and much-needed tool for measuring universal NG911 progress across the nation, as well as for determining the status of NG911 implementation for each state. It was used by the FCC’s Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture (TFOPA) to develop a “NG911 Readiness Scorecard” that 911 centers could use to assess their progress toward the NG911 end state.

The first step was to create a multistage framework that would categorize the functional components and elements across several domains that corresponded to major areas of focus. The domains included: business; data; applications and services; infrastructure; security; and operations and performance. The team broke down all basic functions needed for NG911 and placed them into the domains. Then they worked to identify implementation scenarios, ultimately settling on three, as follows:

State Implementation—States and territories independently would implement an emergency services Internet Protocol (IP) network (ESInet), which is the transport medium for next-generation core services (NGCS), the suite of solutions that enable 911 centers to field and process voice, text, and data calls in a NG911 environment. Each state and territory would implement at least one statewide ESInet, and a minimum of two redundant NGCS centers.

Multistate implementation—Multiple states within ten geographical areas—which generally correspond to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regions—would coordinate their NG911 implementation efforts, largely by interconnecting their statewide ESInets and leveraging NGCS provided by shared, mega-sized centers.

Service Solution—Each state and territory independently would utilize a contracted service provider that would provide all core services and NG911 system maintenance.

With all this in place, it was time to conduct the cost analysis, which considered planning, acquisition, implementation, and sustainment costs of NG911 systems for the entire United States, including territories. The Service Solution was deemed to be the costliest at $12.7 billion over the ten-year implementation lifecycle, followed by State Implementation at $10.5 billion, and Multistate Implementation at $9.5 billion.

The NG911 Cost Study project, which played out over two years, was tremendously daunting, and a lesser firm might have thrown in the towel at numerous junctures. Fortunately, persistence is a core value that every MCPer is expected to embrace—the others are integrity, trust, accountability, and prudence—so the project team was undaunted in its pursuit of these answers. We’re extremely proud of the effort and results, for very good reason.

Glenn Bischoff is MCP’s content specialist. Prior to joining the form 10 years ago, he was editor-in-chief for Urgent Communications and Fire Chief magazines.