This week, there is a new critical alert that requires the public safety community’s immediate attention.
In 2015, while beginning work on the Next Generation 911 (NG911) Nationwide Cost Study for the National 911 Program, it became apparent that the first step was to determine the extent of implementations across the country. Only then could the team define what would be needed to fully implement NG911, from coast to coast, and the ultimate cost.
COVID-19, aka the coronavirus, pandemic is grabbing a lot of attention right now, partly because we don’t see global pandemics in the United States very often, certainly not one of this gravity. But we do see other significant events on a fairly regular basis— e.g., wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, hazardous materials spills, network outages—that can disrupt or halt public safety operations.
In this installment in our Women in Public Safety series in honor of Women's History Month celebrated in March, MCP Insights chats with Christy Williams, director of NCT9-1-1 in Arlington, Texas, and a past president of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). Williams shares her insights regarding the challenges she faced as a woman over her career in a male-dominated industry, and how she overcame them on her rise to leadership positions at the local, state and national levels.
In this installment in our Women in Public Safety series, MCP Insights chats with Dana Wahlberg, director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Emergency Communications Networks (ECN) division. Wahlberg shares her insights regarding how to survive and ultimately thrive in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
Topics: Public Safety
Public safety, like so many other sectors, has been historically male dominated. However, just as the technology the sector uses continues to evolve, so does the number of women entering the sector, and growing within it.
Topics: Public Safety
Three years ago, MCP’s Nick Falgiatore received an IWCE Young Professional award, which was created to showcase next-generation leaders who are shaping the future of the communications industry. Now Nick is being recognized again, having been nominated for IWCE’s Critical Communications Leader of the Year award. This program recognizes individuals whose outstanding leadership has resulted in successful critical communications implementations. MCP Insights recently chatted with Nick about what his nomination means to him, the firm and—most importantly—our clients.
In this recent post on cybersecurity training, we explained why it is one of the most crucial tactics government agencies for cyberrisk prevention—specifically, we highlighted how phishing messages can infect and ultimately bring down an entire mission-critical communications network. With email being such a widely used form of communication, malicious-threat perpetrators are increasing in quantity and sophistication by the minute, looking to take advantage of email’s prevalence in order to exploit it. Statista reports that more than 55 percent of emails sent are considered spam, and many of them contain phishing exploits.
Earlier this year, public safety communications professionals from across the country came together in Austin, TX, to discuss and address the most pressing issues facing the industry at NENA’s Standards & Best Practices Conference. We discussed in a previous blog post why events like this one are critical to our industry’s success in continuing to improve emergency response outcomes. Which challenges are we tackling this year and what’s next for 911?
The expectations placed on public safety agencies increase every day—from doing more with smaller budgets and fewer staff to improving communications between dispatchers and emergency responders in the field, to decreasing response times and improving response outcomes. In today’s constantly evolving emergency communications landscape, the public sector can take a cue from private organizations and prioritize initiatives, goals and ideas through strategic-plan development.
Topics: Operations, Public Safety, Consulting, Law Enforcement
Southern Company is one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the United States, covering a large portion of the southeast. The company is known for being an early adopter of telecommunications technologies. Its subsidiaries include Southern Telecom and Southern Linc, companies dedicated to serving the telecommunications needs of power subsidiaries and charged with reselling any surplus capacity to outside entities. The Southern-owned, multistate, Motorola Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) primarily was used by energy companies, but also by other commercial enterprises and even by some public safety entities.
We’re six weeks into a new year and a new decade, and public safety leaders are focused on pursuing more funding, implementing unconventional approaches related to staffing, recruiting and retention, and implementing innovative strategies to modernize their public safety communications technologies and networks—all while keeping them secure from cyberattacks, which are increasing in frequency and complexity.
Recently, we hosted our first webinar of 2020, during which more than 100 public safety professionals shared their top budget priorities and marketing challenges. Upgrading public safety technology, such as legacy computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records-management systems (RMS) was a prominent theme, with more than half of participants citing this as a key priority in their organization for the coming year. Transitioning to Next Generation 911 (NG911) and staffing, retention and organizational planning also were reemerging topics from previous years.
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