MCP Insights

Client Success Story: Memphis Police and 911 Communications Enjoy a Remarkable Rebirth

Challenge

With the third-highest homicide rate amongst the 50 largest cities, it’s easy to see that the Memphis Police Department needs every possible resource at its disposal. But as recently as three years ago, its emergency communications capabilities were in shambles. The communications infrastructure was aging and had been neglected for at least a decade. Maintenance was substandard for many of its systems and all were several releases behind in terms of their operating software. The department needed to address computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems that had reached end of life. Critical servers were out of drive space.

The 911 center was understaffed and plagued by archaic policies with emergency callers waiting for as long as seven minutes before their call was answered. “We were in bad shape,” says Michael Spencer, the police department’s emergency communications administrator. “There was a lot wrong. We were doing things every day just to keep things running.”

New Legislation Will Have Significant Impact on Public Safety Communications in Florida

The State of Florida recently enacted legislation that has considerable implications for public safety agencies. The law was introduced after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, an organization formed to analyze the 2018 events of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, highlighted several opportunities to improve public safety communications within the state.

Proposed Three-Digit Suicide-Prevention ‘Lifeline’ Will Benefit Public Safety Communications

About a decade ago, I received a call that no one wants to get—a beloved family member had committed suicide. He was schizophrenic, had tried a couple of times before—cry-for-help attempts, apparently—and he wasn’t good about taking his meds, so the call wasn’t unexpected. Nevertheless, it was stunning and sobering, with all of the “what could I have done to prevent this” questions running rampant amongst family and friends.

Understanding What is Good in Public Safety Communications Networks

A key component of effective emergency response is the ability for first responders to communicate with each other, and with their dispatch or control center. Not only is it critical that they can communicate across a common network platform and within the same agency, it is equally important that they have the ability to communicate with first responders from other agencies across disparate platforms. Interoperability between agencies and first responders is a critical consideration for the effectiveness of any wireless network. However, network interoperability is only the tip of the iceberg.

Implementing a Fresh Approach to Overcoming PSAP Staffing Challenges

In our first webinar event of 2019, our subject-matter experts discussed the trends to watch in the coming year and at the top of that list was the challenge agencies and leadership face when staffing public safety answering points (PSAPs). Today, nearly three-quarters of the way through the year, staffing remains one of the top two things that keeps PSAP managers up at night. If you ask a group of PSAP leaders what word comes to mind when they think of staffing, most of them aren’t going to say “good.” Instead, you’ll hear things like “tired,” “revolving door,” “challenging,” and “stressful.”

Google and Apple and Text-to-911: Let's Keep the Faith

Few things are as maddening as when a software release is issued and almost immediately the developer is pushing out patches. But that’s just the way it is with technology—things often don’t always work the way they’re supposed to right away.

Recently we’ve been hearing about problems associated with a new feature of Apple’s iPhone operating system (iOS) that reportedly has been generating a lot of abandoned 911 calls. The Emergency SOS feature enables citizens to place an emergency call without actually dialing 911; those designated as emergency contacts also will be alerted.

DOT and DOC Grants Will Give 911 A Much-Needed Boost

Last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) took the final, much-anticipated step in awarding funding dollars that have been in the works since the Next Generation 911 Advancement Act was announced seven years ago. Originally passed as part of the Middle-Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, the new $109 million grant program is intended to drive the 911 community’s transition to Next Generation 911 (NG911.)

How Public Safety Agencies are Navigating Change and Accelerating Progress

MCP’s Model for Advancing Public Safety is Helping Agencies Build a Blueprint for Today and What They Can Become

Last year, the 911 Center that serves Harford County, Maryland, was having a hard time recruiting and retaining telecommunicators, a problem that is quite common in emergency communications centers (ECCs) across the country.

APCO Preview: This Year's Hot Topic Will Be the Growing Cybersecurity Threat

During the decade that I covered the public safety communications sector for Urgent Communications magazine, I always looked forward to the national trade shows and conferences, such as the one that the Association of Public-Safety Officials (APCO) will host in Baltimore in a couple of weeks. In fact, I and my colleague Donny Jackson spent most of our time in the educational sessions because we felt that was the best place to learn where the sector was heading. As important, those sessions are where one learns about the sector’s biggest challenges and their potential solutions.

CASE STUDY: Supporting the National Capital Region's CAD2CAD Initiative

Background

Real-time, effective, interoperable data-sharing is essential for supporting emergency response today. For nearly a decade, jurisdictions within the National Capital Region (NCR) have benefitted from the NCR Fire and Rescue Computer-Aided Dispatch-to-Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD2CAD) Data-Exchange Hub (DEH). The DEH automates what was once a manual process in coordinating an effective mutual-aid fire department response effort.

Three Tips for Navigating Public Safety Vendor Consolidations

Vendor consolidations happen all the time across all business sectors, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is to eliminate the competition. Other times it is to expand into new markets. Still other times it is to acquire new technology—generally, it is far less expensive and time-consuming for a company to acquire technology than to develop it on its own.

The Five Biggest Takeaways from This Year’s NENA Conference

If you didn’t travel to Orlando last week for the annual National Emergency Number Association (NENA) conference, it can be summed up with one word: progress. The key themes were industry advancement and innovation with several game-changing technologies and initiatives being launched.