Key Takeaways from IWCE 2024 — Part 2

In a previous post, we shared key observations of MCP subject-matter experts who recently attended the International Wireless Communications Expositions (IWCE). Here are a few more.

Public safety clearly wants more intelligence about artificial intelligence

Numerous educational sessions and vendor exhibits were devoted to how public-safety and emergency-response organizations might leverage AI to enhance their operations. A common theme centers on using AI solutions to ease the current burden on 911 centers and telecommunicators, one that is exacerbated by the staffing shortage afflicting this community nationwide.

A common use case that has developed concerns using AI solutions to triage calls made to a 911 center’s nonemergency administrative line. Typically, these calls do not involve emergencies — rather, they are placed to report incidents like animal control incidents and towing requests or to get information about local events. Regardless of how they arrive at an ECC, telecommunicators must field these calls, which wastes precious time and prevents telecommunicators from doing what they have been trained to do. The goal is to reduce the tremendous call volume that telecommunicators experience.

Further, a “lunch-and-learn" session explored several other potential use cases, as follows:

• Automated surveillance and response — AI algorithms increasingly are capable of monitoring surveillance footage and other data streams for unusual activity, and identifying potential threats or emergencies, without human intervention. This capability can significantly reduce response times significantly by catching incidents as they happen, ideally before they escalate.
• Educational and training enhancements — AI is not just a tool for operational efficiency but also for education and training. Simulation technologies powered by AI provide realistic scenarios for training purposes, improving preparedness for actual events. Additionally, AI can personalize learning experiences, adapting to the strengths and weaknesses of individuals.
• Predictive analytics — AI's ability to predict potential future events based on historical data can transform planning and preparedness strategies. This includes predicting natural disasters, public-safety incidents, and infrastructure failures, allowing preemptive measures to be taken.

A few words about advanced persistent threats 

Pam Montanari, emergency communications coordinator for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), spoke about advanced persistent threats (APTs). These are sophisticated, targeted cyberattacks perpetrated by well-resourced entities, often nation-states, aimed at prolonged intrusion into and disruption of networks and systems. Montanari offered the following best practices for mitigating APTs:

• Understand that APTs often focus on the public-safety and critical-infrastructure sectors;
• Regularly execute updates and patches for critical networks and systems;
• Disable or at least restrict NTLM (New Technology LAN Manager) authentication;
• Implement defense-in-depth practices;
• Foster a cybersecurity-aware culture;
• Constantly monitor for indicators of compromise; and immediately respond to cybersecurity alerts.

Remote operations seemingly are here to stay

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some 911 centers allowed telecommunicators to work remotely out of necessity. To the surprise of many, the initiative was not only successful but also paid tremendous dividends. Nevertheless, conventional wisdom at the time was that the experiment would end as soon as things normalized.

However, three years later, the opposite seems to be true, as several of the pioneering 911 centers continue to embrace remote call-taking and dispatching, with others giving more serious consideration to joining their ranks than in the past. This is not something that a 911 center can jump into — rather, it requires considerable thought and planning. Policies and procedures need to be developed, training needs to be conducted, and technology needs to be addressed, e.g., establishment of a virtual private network, implementing necessary hardware and software in the remote-work environment, ensuring that the telecommunicator’s home network will provide connectivity that is sufficiently robust and resilient, and ensuring that the environment aligns with provisions of entities like the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), and so forth.

It's interesting to note that two of the pioneering 911 centers — Alexandria (Virginia) Department of Emergency Communications (DEC) and Arlington County (Virginia) Emergency Communications Center (ECC) — are taking very different approaches to determining who among their telecommunicators will work remotely. The DEC has engaged the services of an employment agency to identify personnel with specific telecommunicator experience — some of these telecommunicators are based in other states as far away as California. In contrast, the ECC selects remote workers based on current employees applying to the remote-work program, which requires, among other elements, a supervisor’s recommendation. Both approaches seem to be working.

All this activity comes at a cost, but the benefits are undeniable. First, remote operations provide a seamless failsafe option if a 911 center encounters a bugout situation. Second, remote workers can quickly and easily be called back to service in their off hours if a surge situation occurs — think of the recent Baltimore bridge collapse. Third, the ability to work remotely, even if only one day a week, has been demonstrated to improve telecommunicator well-being. There’s not enough data at this point to empirically state that offering the ability to work remotely is affecting recruitment and retention positively, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is — indeed, many candidates bring this up during the screening process.

Another interesting thing overheard during IWCE concerned whether artificial intelligence (AI) someday could be leveraged to process emergency calls as well as nonemergency calls without telecommunicator intervention. While this might seem unthinkable today, consider that there was a time not all that long ago when telecommunicators working remotely was equally unthinkable. When it comes to AI, things will get very interesting very quickly as the public-safety sector understands it better and learns how to apply it to its environment in ways that improve emergency-response outcomes.

Glenn Bischoff is MCP’s content specialist. Prior to joining MCP a decade ago, he was editor-in-chief of Urgent Communications and Fire Chief magazines.