NENA 2025: Key Takeaways, Part 2 — Cloud, ASAP, and NG911 Progress

A recent blog highlighted key insights from MCP subject-matter experts at the 2025 National Emergency Number Association (NENA) conference in Long Beach, California. This follow‑up post features observations from three more MCP thought leaders:

• Darrin Reilly, President & CEO

• Karen Carlson, VP & GM, ASAP Program

• Sherri Griffith Powell, Manager, 911 Services

Here are their key takeaways:

Darrin Reilly: Embracing Cloud, AI & Drone Integration

Cloud adoption has emerged as a foundational trend at agencies of all sizes — providing enhanced security, resilience, and redundancy, particularly for centers lacking robust IT departments.

“Cloud platforms now serve as a gateway for enhanced features like AI‑powered tools.” — Darrin Reilly

Highlights include:

• AI-powered training & simulations: Using tools like ChatGPT, MCP’s Bud Hicks demonstrated a swatting call scenario — showing how AI can simulate live‑action conversations and decision points.

• Video analytics & redaction: AI is starting to automate tasks like redacting sensitive video and analyzing footage in near real time.

• Drone deployment: Once considered a novelty, drones are now integrated into situational awareness workflows — especially useful for wildfire monitoring and rapid area assessment.

Cloud and AI are creating agile, scalable platforms — and drones are turning into operational necessities.

Karen Carlson: ASAP Service as a Telecommunicator Ally

One topic stood out for its urgency, relevance, and growing momentum: ASAP Service. Though it’s been available for more than a decade, many 911 centers still don’t know about it — yet, once they learn, the value becomes immediately clear.

Based on the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol, ASAP Service enables alarm-monitoring companies to transmit information directly into a 911 center’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, eliminating the need for one or more phone calls to an alarm-monitoring center to capture information needed to make an informed dispatch decision, reducing call-handling time and accelerating response.

But ASAP Service isn’t just about efficiency. It’s also about telecommunicator wellness. When alarm-generated traffic is reduced, telecommunicators can spend more time focusing on 911 calls — and sometimes even find time for a moment of decompression between them. As one panelist said, “They might actually be able to go to the bathroom.”

Even agencies that don’t traditionally respond to alarms are finding value in ASAP Service. With alarm-generated data in their CAD system, they can identify patterns and trends that previously went unnoticed. That intelligence can inform investigations and strategic planning, even if personnel aren’t dispatched to every alarm.

As more 911 centers explore how to reduce workloads, improve response times, and support telecommunicator wellness, ASAP Service is moving from an unknown to an essential.

Sherri Griffith Powell: NG911 Milestones & Policy Updates

A highlight of NENA each year, David Furth of the FCC Public Safety Bureau delivered critical updates impacting the future of NG911.

SIP & location mandates

• FCC rules now require originating service providers to deliver SIP connectivity and embedded location data within six months of request.

• Requests can be filed directly or via the FCC portal — signaling a hard deadline for NG911 participation.

NG911 cost‑study revisited

• There’s momentum to refresh MCP’s decade‑old cost analysis — but it’s unclear whether this will lead to federal funding.

• Financial uncertainty continues to be a major deployment barrier.

Outage‑notification rules under review

• FCC aims to balance meaningful alerts with information overload. Stakeholders have voiced both extremes. A revised Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is in progress.

Z-axis & dispatchable location gap

• While carriers can send altitude data, most centers can’t translate it into actionable floor-level info.

• The ongoing push is for “dispatchable location” — precise, human-readable address and unit info — instead of raw geographic coordinates.

A Moment to Remember

Finally, this year’s NENA marked the 20th anniversary of MCP’s David Jones’s swearing-in as NENA president — which also occurred in Long Beach when he was director of the 911 center in Spartanburg, S.C. To honor the occasion, a life-size cutout of David was placed in MCP’s exhibit booth — sparking warm laughter and nostalgia amongst attendees.

Glenn Bischoff is MCP’s content specialist.