In Summary: 

• Last year, the Federal Communications Commission issued an order that enables unlicensed devices to share 1,200 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the 6 gigahertz (GHz) band. This whitepaper explores the potential impacts on public safety agencies and strategies for mitigating them.
• “Interference is going to happen,” says Mark Gibson, director of business development and regulatory policy for Comsearch. “The question is, what is going to be done about it?”
• The path an agency uses can take two very different tasks, and each has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The path an agency chooses will depend heavily on its financial and IT resources, whether it can be coalesce regional support, and the level of commitment it can and is willing to lend to the project.

Background

In Summary:

• The Lubbock Emergency Communication District (ECD) needed a way to interconnect the eight emergency communications centers (ECCs) it supports, enhance its 911 call-handling capabilities, and position itself well for the transition to Next Generation 911 (NG911) service.
• Mission Critical Partners was hired by the district to support its efforts to replace its call-routing and call-handling systems, implement a fiber-optic network, and build a new administrative center, which houses its data and training centers, and which also can serve as a backup ECC.
• Today the district has a new emergency services Internet Protocol network (ESInet), new hosted 911 call-routing and call-handling capabilities and more.

Background:

In Summary:

• A 911 service interruption occurred in September 2018 that required the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ 911 Program (NCT911) to communicate with internal and external stakeholders during the crisis—a task made more difficult because a crisis communications plan didn’t exist at the time.
• MCP subject-matter experts thoroughly assessed the steps taken by NCT911 to communicate information about the outage to the affected internal and stakeholders, and assess their effectiveness in reaching those groups.
• A crisis communications plan subsequently was completed by NCT911 that contains several actions based on the recommendations provided by MCP.

Background:

In Summary:

• The public safety radio system used by county, city and university agencies was near end of life and was experiencing significant performance and maintenance issues.
• The county partnered with Mission Critical Partners to support its efforts to procure a new radio system.
• Some users have operated on a temporary bridge system since February 2020; the migration of all users to the full system is expected to be complete by mid-2021.

Background

Story County, Iowa, is located in the center of the state and has a population of about 98,000. Its largest city is Ames, which is home to Iowa State University (ISU), the state capital and is is located about 30 miles north of Des Moines.

In Summary: 

• This whitepaper examines the advantages and the disadvantages of three approaches to provisioning an emergency services Internet protocol network—which not only provides the foundation of a Next Generation 911 system, but also performs other important functions.
• Three ways exist to implement an ESInet: contract with a commercial entity or self-provision. A third model is a hybrid ESInet model.
• The path an agency uses can take two very different tasks, and each has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The path an agency chooses will depend heavily on its financial and IT resources, whether it can be coalesce regional support, and the level of commitment it can and is willing to lend to the project.

Background 

Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems represent a quantum leap forward for the public-safety community and the citizens that it serves. Internet Protocol (IP)-based and broadband-enabled, such systems are capable of considerably more than legacy 911 systems—which is why many emergency communications centers (ECCs) from coast to coast are clamoring to implement them.