What Do You Do When a System Implementation Goes Awry? You Call MCP

Many public-safety organizations across the United States are in the throes of a migration to Next-Generation 911 (NG911) and for good reason. The following are just a few of NG911’s attributes:

• NG911 systems locate emergency callers more efficiently and accurately because they leverage geospatial routing.
• Because they are broadband enabled, they can transport incredibly large files, e.g., video, that would choke legacy 911 systems.
• Because they are Internet Protocol (IP)-based, they enable seamless shifting of an emergency communications center (ECC)’s operations to another center in a bug-out situation.

In central Ohio, a regional effort to stand up a NG911 capability was well underway. The Metropolitan Emergency Communications Center (MECC) — which provides fire, rescue, and emergency medical call-taking and dispatch services for several townships — and the Gahanna Division of Police led the effort.

An emergency services Internet Protocol system (ESInet) was in place as were next-generation core services (NGCS). An ESInet enables emergency calls to be received by an NG911-compliant ECC, while NGCS enable such centers to handle the calls and dispatch the appropriate response. In addition, the two entities jointly had purchased a building to house their respective but similar 911 operations.

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic slowed progress a bit, it seemed that the new ECC would go live by December 31, 2021, which was the hard deadline that had been set for the project’s completion. And then the project hit a major speed bump with the new 911 call-handling system that was being implemented.

“The project quickly became daunting. We had a great team and a lot of smart people in the room, but they didn’t have all of the answers,” says Jeff Spence, chief of the Gahanna Division of Police.

A decision then was made to hire MCP. The team worked tirelessly over many long hours to get the implementation back on the rails, with the result being that the project was completed with room to spare — the new call-handling system went live on December 6.

Spence still is a bit amazed that it did.

“We had heard all of the horror stories, of the utter chaos that often ensues when a new system goes live,” he says. “So, we were all standing around waiting for something bad to happen — and it never did. When we flipped the switch, it was anticlimactic, completely uneventful — it just worked.”

There’s a lot more to this story, and I urge you to read all about by clicking here. I also urge you to reach out if you have a network or system implementation that needs a steady hand to guide it to fruition, especially if the project still is in the planning stages. MCP has more than 200 subject-matter experts who collectively are very well versed on every technology used across the public sector — public safety, justice and government. We would welcome the opportunity to amaze you.

Glenn Angstadt is an MCP client manager. Email him at GlennAngstadt@MissionCriticalPartners.com.