States Tackling Vulnerabilities in NG-911 Technology
SAN FRANCISCO -- State agencies are working to address vulnerabilities in Next-Generation 911 (NG-911) and text-to-911 even as they advance deployment of the technologies, state officials said Tuesday. The April 2014 multi-state 911 outage is the latest example of the “accelerating” trend of 911 outages caused by increasingly advanced 911 technologies, said FCC Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth during a panel discussion at a NARUC conference. The Bureau released a report in October that found a “preventable software error” at a 911 call processing center in Englewood, Colorado, was responsible for the outage (see 1410170057).
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NENA Executive Director Brian Fontes said he believes the FCC should form a federal-state joint board to improve 911 reliability in response to the increase in 911 outages. Both the FCC and state agencies have a responsibility to ensure 911 reliability, but the boundaries of each side’s responsibility can quickly become complicated, Fontes said. A joint board or some other mechanism would help the FCC and state agencies “work constructively” to establish governance over the issue, he said.
King County, Washington, has established dedicated email lists to notify staff at public safety answering points (PSAPs) about 911 outages after existing email lists failed to adequately update all PSAPs on the extent of the April 911 outage in Washington state, King County E-911 Program Manager Marlys Davis said. Washington was the state hardest hit by the April outage, which affected all of the state’s 39 counties, said former NARUC President Philip Jones, a Washington Utility and Transportation Commission (UTC) commissioner. The UTC is currently investigating the outage, Jones said. King County is also working to simplify the individualized 10-digit phone numbers for each PSAP, given confusion about the numbers during the outage, and is working on other backups, Davis said. Washington is also working to improve cybersecurity at the PSAPs following the outage, although cybersecurity wasn’t a factor in the outage, she said.
California has found it “extremely difficult” to implement NG-911 technology, said Karen Wong, California Office of Emergency Services Public Safety Communications assistant director. The state is currently evaluating pilot NG-911 programs in several counties, including portions of Los Angeles County, but those pilots are focused on basic NG-911 functions rather than more advanced NG-911 multimedia technology, Wong said. California will begin rolling out text-to-911 in the spring, when it anticipates at least 25 PSAPs will begin using the technology, Wong said. Additional PSAPs will adopt text-to-911 based on local decision-making, she said.
Indiana has chosen to implement NG-911 technologies on a uniform statewide basis, which has worked “especially well for us” with text-to-911, given that the state has uniform policies for the technology, said Barry Ritter, Indiana State 911 Board executive director. They implemented browser-based text capability, finding that TTY was too slow, Ritter said. Indiana worked with the deaf and hard of hearing community to ensure it met the community’s needs when the state chose not to use TTY, he said. Text-to-911 isn’t widely used yet, but Indiana is working to develop tools to better handle the technology in anticipation of increased adoption, Ritter said. Emergency dispatchers are consistently using text-back technology to verify 911 call details, including verifying the legitimacy of 911 calls, which saves emergency responders from unnecessary trips, he said.