NextGen 911 Concept Test Finished

The U.S. Department of Transportation has finished its proof of concept testing of a next-generation 911 (NG911) system at five comm centers, and has published a report that sets out the test results and establishes a baseline for future testing. The DOT is coordinating the very early stages of NG911 implementation, which could take decades to roll out nationwide. The agency said in the report that its study “answered many pressing questions,” but admitted that the scope of work was “limited by time and money.” One over-arching finding was, “how diverse and complex the 9-1-1 community is and how much work there is to still be done.” Among the test’s finding are: how SMS messages are handled, the process for handling lost, abandoned and dropped calls, integration of telmatics systems, flexibility to handle future data, network performance monitoring, and improved integration of geospatial information. Download (pdf) the full report here.