New 911 Standard Attracts More Local Interest

by Andy Opsahl on October 20, 2009

Photo: Bill Hobgood, public safety team project manager, Richmond, Va., Department of IT

Interest in a technology standard designed to eliminate manual phone calls from alarm companies to 911 centers when the alarms sound is surging among local governments. Advocates of the new standard say it removes two to three minutes of processing time from 911 calls, enabling responders to arrive at emergency sites that much faster. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) endorsed the standard in January 2009. At that point, roughly a dozen agencies had expressed interest in adopting it, according to Bill Hobgood, public safety team project manager of the Richmond, Va., Department of IT.

“The list has swelled to approximately 60 PSAPs [public safety answering points] that have either expressed an interest or have committed to adopting the standard for their operation,” Hobgood said.

He led pilot testing of the standard in Richmond, which eliminated 5,000 calls during its two-year time span before APCO endorsed the standard.

The obvious question is how PSAPs can fund such a transition, given today’s budget constraints. APCO is asking computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software providers to absorb most of the development costs of altering the software. The organization predicts vendors will recover those costs easily once the imminent flurry of adoptions takes place.

“One CAD provider has come forward saying it will develop the standard at its own expense and the license fees will not exceed $10,000,” Hobgood said.

He expects a ripple effect of similar offers from other vendors as more choose to develop the standard.

“If they don’t do it now, they’re going to do it later under pressure from their customers. It would be suicide for a CAD provider to refuse to develop this standard,” Hobgood commented.

The standard is catching on among alarm monitoring companies as well. Alarm vendor Vector Security participated in the Richmond pilot, and five other monitoring vendors are developing the standard, according to Hobgood.