During the opening session, NENA president Richard Taylor jokingly questioned who at NENA chose the long-sleeve shirt for staffers this year--they were apparently very hot.
Taylor also explained that NENA had intended to shoot off fireworks at the Sunday night dockside bash, but the rain scuttled the show.
Overheard in the trade show: "The answer is out there."
How widespared is VoIP? Vonage reports that as of last month, they had 97 customers subscribing to the company's E911 service.
NENA collected all the educational session hand-outs, put them on a CD, and included them with the registration hand-outs--great idea!
Trade show booth reservations were 40 more than last year. Already, NENA has reserved 155 booths for Long Beach next year.
2004 Annual Conference
National Emergency Number Association
Monday
The first day of the conference began with a long sit-down session featuring New York Assemblyman David Koon and Fox TV host John Walsh, and then ended with a rare and frank meeting between members and NENA staff over problems they've encountered over the past year.
A good portion of the day was devoted to exclusive trade show hours, which featured 290 booths from 130 companies. Likewise, according to NENA, over one third of the 1,800 registered attendees were exhibitors. Exclusive tradeshow hours continue tomorrow morning, leaving only the afternoon on both days for educational sessions.
Traditionally at the opening session, there is music playing as NENA members find their seats, and this year it appropriately included Ray Charles' rendition of "America the Beautiful."
NENA president Richard Taylor greeted the crowd of about 1,200, and then introduced New York Assemblyman David Koon, whose daughter Jennifer was tragically kidnapped and murdered in 1993. She dialed 911 from a cellular telephone from the truck of the kidnappers' car, but several years before Phase II was even conceived, the dispatcher was unable to located her.
Koon told the NENA members, "You are the people who save lives," but yet also, "the people that have to go begging to get the money to put E911 in place. He then explained why he is on a mission to support comm centers--his Jennifer. Koon then showed a 12-minute video of scrapbook photos of his daughter, accompanied by Barbara Streisand music. At the end, he told the crowd, "All I want to ask is that each and every one of you, keep up the good work, and the hard work, so that we don't lose any more Jennys."
At the end of Koon's talk, Taylor returned on-stage to thank Koon, saying, "I don't really have the words right now to tell you what I'm feeling in my heart." He thanked Koon, "on behalf of every father and mother, every child in this country," for his support and commitment to E911.
Taylor then introduced the first-time attendees, which appeared to total fully one-fourth of the morning crowd. He said 176 new Emergency Number Professionals had been added during the past year to the previous 600. Taylor presented a tribute to Laverne Hogan, who recently passed away after a 20-year career with the Greater Harrison County 911 Network. He also introduced the NENA committees for a round of applause from the audience.
Taylor presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Ohio chapter founding member Kenneth Borror. He presented the William J. Stanton Award to Brenard Brabant (ENP) of Bell Canada, for his work on wireless E911 and other issues. In his brief remarks, Brabant thanked the association and then told the audience, "As you can see, English is my second language, the first one being 9-1-1." He revealed that he is a cancer survivor, and advised the group, "Life is a gift, quality of life is a choice." He was modest about the award, telling the audience, "You all deserve a part of this."
Taylor said the association's relocation to Washington (DC) was, "quite a move." He said some staffers had decided not to make the move to the new quarters, and that there was many new faces--including one staffer who started only last Saturday.
Next, a Verizon executive introduced John Walsh--but he had been delayed in traffic from eastern Florida, and didn't arrive for another five minutes. When he did dash on-stage in a black shirt and blue jeans, he received a standing ovation. Walsh then spent an hour recounting how he can to be an unwilling and unexpected spokesperson for victims. He recalled in great detail the 1981 abduction of his son, and spoke frankly of his frustration with Hollywood (Fla.) police and the FBI at their seeming lack of interest and slow response to mount a search. He told of his work the very next year lobbying Congress to pass a child abduction law allowing the FBI to enter such cases quicker--the law was opposed by the FBI, who claimed they didn't have the resources to handle such cases, and that most missing children were runaways anyway. "The fix was in," Walsh claimed, since former FBI agent Rep. Don Edwards was supposedly supporting the legislation.
Walsh recalled how he crashed an FBI press conference to berate the agency on its legislative position, and was literally thrown out of the building. And the how, five years ago, he was ironically named the FBI's Person of the Year in that very same room.
Interestingly, the bill eventually passed and Walsh was present in the White House Rose Garden to watch Ronald Reagan sign the bill. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was also created under Reagan, and now has a staff of 150, along with several FBI and Secret Service agents.
He told how he was approached by Fox in 1987 to host a reality show, but initially turned down the offer. However, after they hounded him for six months, he accepted. The very first case they aired turned into a capture within two weeks--and the rest is history. So far, the show had recovered 798 fugitives and 35 missing children.
Walsh told the story of Elizabeth Smart, and how a dispatcher helped in her recovery and the capture of her kidnappers. Smart was profiled for the ninth time on America's Most Wanted with a new composite, which generated an immediate tip from the suspect's former wife. Within two months, two couples spotted the suspect, his female accomplice and Smart in Sandy (Utah). They dialed 911, and Walsh said the handling calltaker "took these calls seriously," and immediately dispatched police for the apprehension.
"I consider you my partners," Walsh said, and then warned, "It's only going to get tougher." AMW profiled Osama Bin Laden back in 1993, and when he visited with Interpol in 1994, they told him that America would eventually become a target of terrorists.
He said that while AMW has its own hotline (3,000 to 4,000 tips a week), most people instinctively dial 911 for help. So dispatchers have to be ready to handle any type of call.
Walsh admitted to be attracted to action, not talk. "I've listened to more B.S.," he told the NENA members. He said the President George Bush was an action type of person, and had aided in a beef-up of resources at the NCMEC. "I'm not here to say you should re-elect him," Walsh said, but added that Bush is "tough."
"You're there. You're on the front lines for victims of tragedy," said in closing. Taylor came back on-stage to present Walsh with the association's Presidential Leadership Award for his victims' advocacy work.
VoIP In Progress
Yes, voice over the Internet (VoIP) is the next Phase II--nothing but problems to overcome. During an afternoon educational session Nate Wilcox (Vermont E911 Board) helped the audience grasp how the challenges of VoIP and E911 are being attacked by NENA and other groups. Wilcox was named last August to head NENA's VoIP/Packet Committee, which now has five working groups.
He said the industry has designated three phases for implementing a full E911 solution for VoIP:
- I1 - an immediate solution with restrictions
- I2 - an intermediate solutions using various solutions by the end of 2004
- I3 - an undefined solution by 2005
The so-called "I1" solution will provide no expectation of ANI/ALI information, although some VoIP providers, including Vonage and 8x8, are making the service available to their subscribers under certain strict conditions that insure a proper address. In most cases, these services establish a physical, geographic address for the subscriber, and then route any 911 calls to the 10-digit emergency telephone of the proper PSAP.
Future solutions are working on how to standardize much of the handling of subscriber data, so that address, PSAP and other E911-related data is properly obtained, stored, transferred and updated. There are lots of ways the data can go wrong. For example, right now, Vonage collects the subscriber's location from a form the person fills out on-line. If that information is incorrect or inaccurate, it can create routing problems later on when the subscriber dials 911. (Yes, Vonage does validate addresses, but only that the address entered is valid, not that's it's really the location of the subscriber.)
During the same session, Bryan Martin, chairman of VoIP start-up 8x8 Inc., explained that his company just began offering an optional E911 service to its subscribers through the Level(3) Internet network. The service is available in 50 of the nationwide markets the company covers, and will eventually expand to 90% of markets. The company charges a $9.95 on-time sign-up fee for E911, then charges $3 per month. Martin said the company is remitting the monthly charge on to local agencies, and actually loses money on the fee (the company spends about $3.50 on surcharges, taxes and fees). Martin called this fee collection a "significant step forward," and unusual among VoIP companies.
Under the company's terms of service, the subscriber is required to notify the company if they relocate the VoIP box. The company does have a way of detecting a location (the device's IP address would change), which could trigger a customer alert. But Martin said people aren't used to having a telephone talk to them, so this feature hasn't been implemented yet.
Carleton Smith of Intrado said his company is offering routing services for wireless carriers. He said during the past year or so, the company has handled about 8,000 calls to 911 from VoIP phones. In response to a question, he said Intrado re-verifies PSAP information twice a year, so the contact information is up to date.
Wilcox and others emphasized that NENA and other groups are working simultaneously on all phases of implementation-- I1, I2 and I3. "We are ahead of the curve," he said, in contrast to wireless E911. "We're working as fast and as hard as we can." He pointed interested persons to a Web site for further information about VoIP/E911.
Frank & Open Discussion
By its own admission, NENA dropped in a session at 5:15 p.m. attended by its officers and staff, to allow an open discussion of some problems being reported by members. During the 75-minute session, complaints were aired, apologies were given, and assurances were made that the issues were being addressed and corrected.
NENA executive director Terry Peters opened by recounting the move of the association's headquarters from Ohio to just outside Washington (DC). He said that five veteran staffers decided not to move to DC, and the group consequently lost some of the "texture" of its communications. He said the association has done some remarkable things during the past year, but that some members believe "we consistently fail" on other issues.
A member's complaint about the cost of this year's conference registration touched a discussion of NENA's finances in general, and the cost of holding a conference specifically. Peters said that in pursuit of NENA's objectives, the group had over a period of years run up a debt of $500,000. Now, he said, NENA is devoting money each month to paying down the debt, and along the way adjusting the association's spending priorities. He noted that NENA's membership costs hadn't been raised in years, and conference fees hadn't changed in eight years. Many of NENA's activities, including legislative lobbying ($250,000 during 2003), aren't revenue producers.
He said the conference registration this year reflects a $100 discount (not $100 penalty) for those staying in a hotel. The explanation is that hotels provide a certain amount of free meeting space based on hotel room booking. NENA simply must charge for those not staying in a hotel to recoup the cost of meeting space. He noted that with reduced hotel bookings at the last Technical Development Conference, NENA ended up owing $62,000 extra for meeting space.
When a member complained that registration fees couldn't be refunded except in case of dire emergency, Peters explained that food costs alone run about $250 per person at the conference. He said NENA pays those costs, even if someone shows up. Even so, Peters agreed to hold staff discussions of a future refund policy.
There were complaints about telephone calls to staff not being returned, missing membership cards, misplaced bills, and other foul-ups. The members said the issues appeared to be small, but in fact amounted to more than an irritation--it's affecting membership renewals and service. Jason Barbour, president of the North Carolina chapter, said, "North Carolina is fed up," with the mistakes and problems. He said the chapters was once the largest, but now he can't get an accurate member count from the national office, so, "Who knows?"
There was also a complaint about the balloting process for association officers. Peters admitted, "We fell down on the election process." However, he said the NENA board met with the candidates, and after a full discussion of the problem (apparently not everyone received a ballot), everyone agreed to abide by the results of the election.
Peters apologized several times and said he and the staff were diligently working on the issues, particularly the computers systems upon which the association is increasingly dependent. He said NENA has purchased new servers, new workstations (they brought them to the conference to save $12,000 in rental costs), and will be completely replacing the membership database program, which has proved completely unreliable since the move to DC, despite troubleshooting by the staff and experts.
In response to a question, Richard Taylor said the association's budget is being finalized during the conference, and will be made available on NENA's Web site. Peters said the group's strategic plan is being meshed with the budget, and would also be posted on-line for member review.
Several members made the point they weren't taking personal potshots at the staff, and there seem to be fewer problems in the last few months.
In-coming president Bill McMurray closed by saying the gathering was "not an eagerly anticipated evening" for the staff, and he was not comfortable with them "taking arrows." He believes the buck stops with the executive board. He thanked the members for the input, and both he and Peters asked everyone to keep the lines of communication open. "Stay on us," Peters said.
