We note the seminar presenter whose slide show was interrupted by pop-up alerts from his calendar program, noting that some tasks were "overdue." Oops!

If you're lucky enough to have a room on the west side of the hotel, you're treated to an 8:25 p.m. sunset that is fiery red, and to fireworks from Disney at both 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

The Greater Harris County 911 training center is being occupied by the Tarrant County sheriff as a comm center, until the sheriff's own command center can be pumped dry after Tropical Storm Allison.

California, New Jersey and perhaps a handful of other states have submitted state-level requests for Phase II, making it a state issue, not local.

Kathryn Condello of CTIA estimated that there are 6,800 PSAPs, and said if they each dealt with 7 wireless carriers, there could be in excess of 44,000 separate contracts for Phase II service.

DISPATCH Monthly Magazine's Coverage of the
Annual Conference of the
National Emergency Number Association

Monday, 25 2001

  • Mystery of Winking Smiley Face
  • Tension Between FCC & CTIA

The annual conference officially kicked off at 8 a.m. this morning with welcoming ceremonies and a selection of speeches by NENA's president Norm Forshee and U.S. Department of Transportation ITS program director Jeff Paniati.

NENA also gave the audience a glimpse of its new youth 911 recognition program, and finished with motivational speaker James Mapes, who explained the theory behind "Quantum Leap Thinking."

For anyone waiting to read the association's Report Card to the Nation, the draft version has been finished, but won't be presented to Congress until 911 Day this coming September--exactly one year late.

Starting some 15 minutes late, Det. Randy Snyder sang the Canadian and American National Anthems with the back-up of the NENA Choir as the Honor Guard presented the colors. Orlando Police Chief Jerry Demings welcomed the NENA members.

Forshee summed up NENA's past year, and then pointed the attendees to the next year's challenges. He noted the theme of this year's conference, "Inspired, informed, connected."

Forshee introduced the entire APCO executive board, whose members are all attending the conference, and he added that NENA was working closely with that group on several issues.

"Today," Forshee said, "NENA is in the midst of a dramatic change." The association began in a garage 20 years ago, he recalled. Today, it has 7,300 members, 26 committees and owns its own building. Forshee listed the association's accomplishments during the past year:

  • about 18 new committees were created, including those for wireless and non-traditional devices
  • best business practices program
  • U.S. Department of Transportation collaboration to implement wireless E911
  • Operation Respond memo of understanding, which will provide 911 managers with emergency contact information for rail carriers, and a list of PSAPs for rail carriers to call
  • The Report Card to the Nation was originally to be finished and presented to Congress in Nov. 2000. Forshee explained, "We are now finished with the draft of the Congressional report to Congress, and have completed the comprehensive versions of the report for our members and stakeholders in 911." He said the association's research confirmed their belief that "the call volume for 911 has grown tremendously, and it underscores our belief that wireless calls to 911 present a growing burden and challenge."
  • Business Alliance with key commercial sponsors and providers that taps the knowledge base to gather information to assist the group's members.
  • National Heroes Program, which will annually recognize children for their 911 calls.
  • Wireless Critical Issues Forums held around the country during the past year. Forshee said the effort was successful--"Michigan was one example," he said. NENA's efforts, coupled with the local chapters, resulted in all 84 counties making a request for Phase I wireless service.
  • Wireless Testing program, to test and certify location solutions to insure compliance and accuracy.

In additional to all these programs and initiatives, Forshee said, NENA's presence in Washington (DC) has increased "ten-fold." The group hired a new technical issue director (Roger Hixson), "and even addressed the situation that has been a cause of concern by our many members for the past few years."

"I'm speaking, or course, of the APCO-NENA relationship," Forshee continued. He said he hoped everyone knows that NENA and APCO have been working together closely on issues related to the FCC. He listed several projects on which both organizations are working together. "Our executive directors have met with each other," Forshee said, "and we are exploring ways for the two organizations to complement each other as we move forward."

Where From Here?

Forshee then turned to the future of association. "As I said earlier, NENA is in transition. We're expanding our sphere of influence, and moving from a reactionary mode concerning changes in 911, to a proactive mode." He said NENA is looking at new methods and partners, "to help fulfill our goal of 'One Nation, One Number.'"

He said the potential to reach that goal is "closer now than ever before. And mostly because of the new technologies that's presented us with our most challenging opportunities."

Forshee said that in the future, NENA must focus on:

  • Research and development
  • Validation and certification
  • Regulation and representation
  • Education and public information

He finished his remarks by saying that NENA needs vision, information experience and "you." He added that, "Each of you are here not only to participate, but to lead 911 into the future, to see that it continues to be the number accessed in an emergency, no matter what the source of the call."

Impressive Kids

Texas Chapter president Alisa Simmons (right), who is manager of public marketing at the Tarrant County 9-1-1 District, introduced NENA's newest initiative -- a National 9-1-1 Heroes program that recognizes children for their "heroic calls to 9-1-1." Simmons explained that each year NENA will randomly select four chapters who select the awardees. This year, chapters in North Carolina, Texas, Florida and Illinois participated in the award selections.

Simmons showed a videotape of the first four awardees, and audio of their calls. Johnny Carr, 6 years old, Ethan Heard, 9, Michael Mathis, 7 and Brendan Pope, 6, then came on-stage with their parents to the applause of the NENA audience. The boys looked slightly bewildered, but their parents looked very proud.

The calls reported a range of situations, including unconscious parents and pool accident. It was definitely a testament to 911 public education, and the often unacknowledged competency of children when an emergency occurs. All four boys will officially receive their awards during a Tuesday ceremony.

Intelligent Connection

NENA has recently been working with the U.S. Department of Transportation, whose mission has increasingly brought it into intersection with the public safety goals of the association, particularly in the area of automatic crash notification.

NENA first vice president Sharon Counterman introduced Jeff Paniati (right), deputy director of the U.S. DOT's Intelligent Transportation (ITS) Joint Program Office. Paniati outlined the DOT projects and how he believes they can assist pubic safety, and NENA specifically, in achieving its goals.

Paniati focused on an introduction to ITS, how the DOT is trying to link public safety and transportation, and where he feels public safety and DOT can work together.

ITS includes traffic signal pre-emption for emergency vehicles, toll collection, in-vehicles systems such as OnStar, and automatic vehicle notification systems. He said over 40,000 persons die on the nation's highways each year, and another 3 million are injured. "It's clear something must change, something must happen if we're going to deal with the economic and social impact of those crashes and that congestion." During the past decade, the DOT has evolved from a highway construction agency, to an agency that is focused more on operations, highway public safety on the highways.

"This focus then on operations opens the door for the transporation sector to work much more closely with many sectors, most specifically, the public safety sector," Paniati said. The lastest discussion moves beyond seat belts or highway design, and to the actual delivery of medical services. "The transportation community, I think, is finally awakening to the importance of E911 to the ITS mission," he said.

He said he believes the ITS community can provide some "neutral leadership" for the types of discussion the E911 industry has already been having, and to provide technical leadership to PSAPs who are dealing with wireless E911. "We look at E911 as just the beginning of where we see technology going to provide emergency response" he said. The DOT intends to perform field tests to prove the practicality of the various technologies to improve highway safety.

Paniati concluded by saying that automatic collision notification (ACN) is the "true intersection" between public safety and ITS. "It is really where we bring technology and public safety together to try to solve a very important public safety problem." Considering the growing number of ACN-equipped vehicles, Paniati said, it's important to act quickly on this issue.

"There are rapidly-expanding possibilities for coordinating public safety and transportation," Paniati said. "But we will only be able to achieve the opportunities that are there if we work together."

The morning session ended with a one-hour presentation by motivational speaker James Mapes, who explained his "Quantum Leap" theory of thinking, and interacted with an audience member on-stage.

Wireless Panel

The major afternoon educational session was devoted to a panel on the issues of wireless E911--the current status and where it's headed. Panelists included (l. to r.) Roger Hixson, NENA Technical Issues Director, Laverne Hogan, chair of NENA's wireless operations committee, Ron Whinery, chair of NENA's wireless committee, and Jim Nixon, who reported on Phase I.

Also speaking was Kathryn Condello vice president of industry operations for the Cellular Telephone and Internet Association (CTIA), and Kris Anne Monteith, chief of the Policy Division of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.

After a brief update on Phase I and II wireless 911, the packed room heard Condello explain the wireless carriers' point of view on 911. She was followed by Monteith, who took exception to Condello's viewpoints several times. We've summarized the forum in a separate section.

Smiley Face

The mystery of the winking Smiley face was solved as soon as the exhibit hall opened at 10:30 a.m. The familiar round yellow Simley face -- this version with a winking left eye -- was plastered onto balloons, pins, stickers and even on the wrapper around the USA Today newspaper delivered to NENA attendees at the Marriott hotel.

The face belonged to "Simon," Positron's latest integrated telephone product aimed at smaller agencies. The devices was new even to many of Positron's booth personnel, but employees and NENA members alike seemed to quickly take to the touch-screen controls and logical layouts. Some Simon devices were displayed under glass, while other were available for testing. Positron personnel said they were hoping to gauge color and screen lay-out preferences during the conference.

Featuring a remarkably hip frame and a video game machine case, the Simon phone offers many of the features of Positron's Power 911 product, but at a "plug in and go" installation. It combines computer telephony, TTY and voice recording features that use flash memory instead of hard disks or other moving parts. The 12-inch touchscreen can be configured, colorized and otherwise customized by the user agency [another screen shot]. The Simon device includes a matching device for those who want to press buttons to enter certain commands.

Intrado followed up on their massive campaign to sear the company's new name into the brains of attendees. At certain places on the booth, there was an explanation that Intrado was born of SCC Communications Corp. and Lucent Public Safety Systems.

911 For Kids, revitalized by NENA's newest foray into child public education, was showing off its workbooks, video presentation and other education materials.

Bramic Creative Business Products Ltd. showed their line of 24-hour ergonomic furniture that features task lighting, partitions, cable management, radiant heaters, and complete adjustability.

Indico Corp. of Fort Worth (Tex.) was showing off its browser-based law enforcement records system that can be used over an intranet or, with appropriate security, over a private IP network spanning several cities or counties.

The front end of the records system is HTML and Java, pulling data from a robust SQL database. This structure allows data access from any Internet browser workstation, or any device that can display Web material. That capability puts PDAs, pagers and wireless phones on the list of access points for records management data, in addition to conventional laptop mobile terminals more commonly used by law enforcement agencies. Similarly, the Indico records management software can store and display photos, video and audio data that an officer or deputy might collect in connection with an investigation.

Their CAD software uses a Visual Basic front end, poking data into an SQL database. It includes ESRI mapping, E911, paging and external interfaces (including to records management). Dispatchers can use a command line to accomplish tasks, click and double-click items using a mouse, or even drag-and-drop to assign units and take other actions. The software features all of the usual items: address verification, proximity alerts, history files, timed events, information files, unit recommendations based on ETA, distance, unit or officer capability. Unit and incident status screens are configurable by the dispatcher, and field names and column titles can be custom configured by the agency.

Contact Indico at www.indicopublic.com or (800) 692-5963.

Perhaps one of the neatest gizmos on display was a circular, back-lighted map holder. You can use any one-sided map that has some transparency, slip it into the map holder, and locate it centrally in the comm center. Any dispatcher can then quickly spin the map to the exact area needed.

Printrak appeared, but this time with the explanation "A Motorola Company" on their booth.

Outside the exhibit hall, NENA staff were on hand to explain their publications and other members services. Inside, the NENA executive board put on aprons and chefs hats to serve up a free pizza lunch to attendees.

 

 

Tomorrow: More seminars and site visit to Orange County communications.