Next Generation 9-1-1: Interoperability is the Key

MICHAEL SMITH , DSS CORPORATION - January 20, 2010

9-1-1 Magazine

A dispatcher for the Cleveland (OH) Police dispatch center. Like many large metropolitan PSAPs, Cleveland handles police, fire, and EMS in separate areas, but hopes to consolidate these operations

You know NG 9-1-1 is coming. You may even feel like you’re on a collision course with it. But don’t worry, be hppy! You’ll certainly have to make adjustments, but you’ll also see many new benefits. The public will be able to contact you in many new ways, but it’s a two-way street: you’ll also be able to respond in new ways, and much more effectively. And thanks to a new set of standards, your NG 9-1-1 equipment will be able to play together right out of the box. The full benefit of this may not be obvious, so let’s take a closer look at that, and at the impact it will have on your operations. The highway that will carry all of this new information is an IP network, really a network of networks, called the Emergency Services IP network (ESInet). PSAPs connected to this ESInet will be able to receive NG 9-1-1 emergency requests, and transfer them to other agencies across the ESInet along with important emergency data. The ESInet will also allow the creation of “virtual” PSAPs, where PSAP systems, services and personnel can be located anywhere, and easily shared by multiple agencies.

THE STANDARDS EFFORT
But how is this magic going to work? The key is a set of emerging standards that will allow NG 9-1-1 compliant systems from different manufacturers to talk to each other. You’re probably familiar with APCO’s Project 25 standards, and the interoperability they’ve provided in the radio world. The new NG 9-1-1 standards will do the same – and more – for your other critical PSAP systems. Many technical “working groups” have been established to create these standards. One of these is a joint APCO/NENA group that is tasked with providing interoperability between systems in a PSAP, regardless of physical location. According to co-leaders Joe Gallelli (Zetron®) and Charles Corprew (AT&T™), the group is focused on creating an XML “Emergency Incident Object” that any PSAP system can use to share data with another PSAP system. Gallelli said: “It goes beyond the simple user requirements that exist today – open standards are the goal.We're in a paradigm shift right now in how public safety does business.” Corprew added that “A PSAP will be able to get equipment and software off the shelf from compliant vendors. And they'll have a guide to understand what's required to participate in the NG 9-11 network.” Both agreed that interoperability is the key to making NG 9-1-1 work. This level of interoperability is something we’ve never seen in Public Safety, and the impact will be substantial. To understand that, let’s look at it from the perspective of a couple of real PSAPs.

CASS COUNTY, IN Indiana had one of the first statewide 9-1-1 IP networks in the country, and provided the critical infrastructure for the Dept. of Transportation’s NG 9-1-1 proof of concept tests. Cass County’s 9-1-1 center serves citizens of the county and several municipalities with six call taker positions, and provides Law Enforcement, Fire and EMS dispatch services for many of these jurisdictions. The PSAP is purely VoIP, receiving calls via the statewide IP network, with analog and T1 lines added for fault tolerance. According to Director Lori Forrer, the PSAP utilizes equipment from a variety of providers: INdigital Telecom's BAS-EC 911 IP answering positions (INdigital is also the network provider for Indiana's VOIP wireless IN911 network), Motorola® radio, equature® Multimedia Recording, and CAD from WTH Engineering. The PSAP also handles calls for Logansport P.D., which employs a different CAD system. According to Forrer, the two CAD manufacturers worked together to create a custom interface so the two systems could interoperate. Asked whether the “off the shelf ” interoperability of NG 9-1-1 will help with issues like this one, Forrer said: “Absolutely. Off the shelf is going to mean lower cost.We could pick a system based on features and price, rather than worrying about whether it will work with our other systems.” All PSAPs must fulfill legal, public and media requests for emergency incident data and related recordings. Forrer said finding all the pieces of data from different systems can be very labor-intensive, and the new NG content will likely make it even worse. But since NG PSAP systems will have access to all those pieces through a common Emergency Incident Object, the job will actually become much easier, relieving what has been a heavy burden on most PSAP operations. Forrer wasn’t concerned about the coming NG multimedia content, noting their recent purchase of an equature Multimedia Recorder. Asked about the decision, she said: “Being a NextGen platform was huge for me. I didn't want to invest in a system that wasn't already ready - I didn't want to have to do an upgrade later, at additional cost.” Forrer said the impact of NG 9-1-1 will be huge: “I started as a dispatcher in 1989, and kind of worked my way up, then became Director in 2003. It's wonderful to see where we were, and where we are today.” Indeed – and more wonderment is certainly in the works. CITY OF CLEVELAND, OH The City of Cleveland, Ohio has a larger PSAP operation – call takers and dispatchers serving police, fire, and EMS for this major metropolitan area. According to John Gigante of the Division of Police Communications, their ultimate goal is to consolidate these three operations into one, where one group of call takers diverts incidents to the appropriate agency’s dispatch operation. Bashir Rahman, Director of Communications for the Division of Fire, said they also have a mobile command vehicle for use as a backup, or as a command post in a major disaster. They don’t currently have VoIP capability; all calls come in over traditional 9-1-1 trunks, which are handled by Nortel™ and IPC Positron™ systems. An older Motorola trunked radio system is currently in use, with expectation to upgrade. All three Divisions use the Intergraph® CAD System with EMS and Fire utilizing Intergraph’s CAD Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) systems. The Division of Police utilizes MDT’s for querying LEADS and NCIC records, and has a New World Systems® RMS that interfaces to their Intergraph CAD system. The Fire Division utilizes a fire house RMS from ACS®. Gigante added that they recently selected equature Multimedia Recording to replace their legacy voice recorder. He said the ability to use off-the-shelf hardware drove that decision. Gigante said: “Increasing archive capacity by simply purchasing a standard drive is a definite advantage.” While a larger PSAP often has more “moving parts,” it’s not surprising that they face many of the same challenges as a smaller PSAP, just on a larger scale. On the subject of NG 9-1-1 “off the shelf ” interoperability, both agreed it would be a great improvement. Asked whether it would make things easier, Gigante said: “Absolutely, it makes perfect sense,” and Rahman added: “It would also help with upgrades - new versions would not break existing customizations.” But both expressed some concern about vendors fully supporting this interoperability. According to Rahman, “It sounds good - if you could access everything you need from a single system - that would be great.” And Gigante added: “It's good to have all this information, but it has to be presented in a way that the average person can understand.” Vendors will certainly have to adhere to the standards, or NG 9-1-1 won’t work at all. But they’ll also have to work hard to ensure that this new NG content is presented to users in a meaningful, understandable way. On the subject of producing “legal record” information in response to court, public and news media requests, both agreed that finding all the required pieces is a serious burden. They have to produce not only the recordings, but also information from the CAD, Call Taker, RMS and other systems. Since all these systems will be able to access data in other systems through a common NG 9-1-1 Incident Object, this burden should be greatly reduced. Both felt it would save a lot of time if you could simply click a button in one system to get the content stored in another system. “That would be fantastic!” said Rahman. Gigante added that redacting privileged portions out of recordings using a separate application has also been burdensome, and equature’s built-in redaction feature was a big plus in their procurement decision. The obvious message here is that while the standards are going to enable system interoperability, vendors are going to have to listen closely to their customers’ needs in order to provide the actual real-world benefits. And since this is where the “rubber meets the road,” let’s ask a few vendors for their take.

VENDOR VIEWPOINTS
Intergraph is a major provider of CAD and MDT systems like those employed by the City of Cleveland. According to VP of Public Safety Steve Marz, Intergraph has made a major commitment to interoperability through their Intergraph Interoperability Framework™. He added: “It can talk To any interoperability standards based on XML.” Intergraph’s Linda Ogilvie serves on the APCO/NENA working group developing the XML Incident Object, and noted that Intergraph also provides a representative to yet another working group. Ogilvie added: “We feel it is imperative to NG 9-11 that all the entities can talk together. We are currently providing this level of interoperability to legacy PSAPs with the Framework.” Both considered the standards to be crucial in making NG 9-1-1 a working reality.

PlantCML®, another well-known provider of PSAP equipment, also focuses on interoperability. VP of Global Marketing Communications Tami Timperio noted the the participation of PlantCML’s parent company, EADS, in Project 25 standards development and testing, including a recently announced Joint Interoperability Lab in Texas. VP of Product Management Mahendra Soneji highlighted PlantCML’s participation in the NENA NG Partner Program and recent NG Showcase as evidence of the company’s commitment to NG interoperability.

Joe Mosed, General Manger of DSS Corporation, echoed that sentiment: “We participate in the NENA NG Partner Program, and provide a representative to the joint APCO/NENA standards group. We are committed to the whole interoperability effort.” Mosed stressed that equature was purposely designed for open standards from the ground up, and that this is key to the company’s philosophy. “All this new NG content has to be recorded and managed as a legal record. That’s where equature Multimedia Recording comes in – it was built pecifically to handle all these different media types. Making all this content readily available to any other PSAP system that needs it is one of the most powerful facets of NG 9-1-1. We’re doing our part to making that happen.” Joe Gallelli, who serves as Strategic Planner at Zetron, foresees a possible shakeup in the industry as a result of the paradigm shift he says NG 9-1-1 represents: “Some companies have been preparing for a long time; creating interfaces will require experience with creating standards-oriented IP and XML software. There may be a portion of vendors that will fall out.” He added that this is being modulated by public/private partnership efforts in which vendors can participate. APCO, NENA, many government agencies, and many vendors are working hard to make NG 9-1-1 interoperability a reality. You’ll probably agree that it’s a reality that’s long overdue in Public Safety.

Michael Smith is Chief Technologist for DSS Corporation, manufacturer of the equature® Next Generation Multimedia Recording platform. A contributor to APCO/NENA standards efforts with more than 25 years of Public Safety call recording experience, Mr. Smith is asked to speak frequently on the subject, and on the operational impacts of NG 9-1-1. For more information on equature, visit www.equature.com.