Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Dog Pound - Jan. 14, 2003

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 21:37:58 -0500

A great story from the Sumner County (Kan.) E911 Communications Center: dispatcher Sandy
Dvorak received one of those typical "fanny" wireless phone calls--she heard two persons
calmly talking about a male friend and "his inability to drive." She also heard the sounds
of a local radio station in the background. Thinking fast, Dvorak called the station and
explained the situation to the DJ, who in-between records told his listeners, "If you're
driving around talking about a friend that can't drive, please check your cell phone...it
dialed 911." The DJ also gave listeners some advice to lock their keypads--thank you.
Dvorak heard the DJ's comments on the 911 connection, and within a couple of minutes the
connection ended.

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Anne Arundel County (Md.) will take up to a year and spend $12.7 million to upgrade their
Motorola 800 MHz trunked radio system from. The local police union says that dead spots
have long caused officer safety problems--a 1999 study ID'd eight specific areas, each
having a nearby tower. Technicians say the likely culprit is the increase in other radio
system interference, including wireless phone base stations. Now, they say, there are 62
dead spots. On the improvement list: upgrade gear at at four tower sites, triple the
system's digital microwave backbone, license 16 new radio frequencies, and distribute
1,100 radios and 100 vehicle repeaters. Nearby Howard County is nearing completion on a
$26.6 million 800 MHz trunked radio system Motorola system, and Harford County is half-way
through its $23 million radio system upgrade.

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Ah, the power of the Internet: Colorado dispatcher and entrepreneur Jeff Scott has debuted
his PremiseLink.com Web site, which allows business owners to post emergency contact
information, and PSAPs to register to retrieve it using a password. "I am constantly
dealing with the problem of missing or inaccurate premise information for local
businesses," Scott said in e-mail. He notes that business owners can select what names and
contact phone numbers to post, allows them to update at any time, and allows any
authorized dispatchers to retrieve it via the Web. PSAPs pay a small annual fee, but the
service it free for businesses. Surf here and use "sample" for any username and password
to get a feel for the site:

http://www.PremiseLink.com

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New World Systems has signed on Kendall County (Ill.) for an $800,000 public safety
software system that includes the company's multi-jurisdictional Aegis Records Management,
Corrections Management, Business Office, Field Reporting, Imaging and Data Management and
Retrieval tools, and other modules. Sheriff's officials said they selected New World
Systems in part because they can implement--and pay for--the system in phases: they'll
initially implement records management, then move to mobile data and CAD. Phase 3 involves
consolidated dispatching for 23 agencies. The county sheriff has 100 deputies handling
50,000 incidents a year from 65,000 residents.

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Yikes! The Hound is stunned to learn from a story on the "RCR News" Web site that there is
public safety communications support for routing automatic crash notification (ACN)
directly to PSAPs. Yes, even with the current flood of accidental wireless 911 calls, the
article claims the APCO board supports legislative requirements, "requiring direct connect
from ACN devices directly to PSAPs through legislative/regulatory mandates." The story
also says John Melcher, NENA president, " would prefer that whenever the telematics
service center receives an ACN or emergency call, the technology calls the 911 trunk,
rather than the 10-digit number." How many more thousands of 911 calls would <this>
generate at America's understaffed centers?

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