COVID-19 Highlights Need for NG-911 but Could Delay Rollout

Few states have procured all NG-911 components and many don't have any, according to last year’s federal government progress report. About 47% of reporting states had completed a contract for NG-911 parts, functions or components. Twenty-one states lacked NG-911 capable services for any residents; and 11 reported capability to serve 100%. The report cautioned that's based on an industry standard that doesn't mean systems are fully functional.

The coronavirus is elevating urgency for those without NG-911 contracts, said Frost & Sullivan analyst Brent Iadarola. “The next 12 months will be a really critical time period to secure contracts.” The pandemic could add three to six months to deployments that typically take six months to two years depending on scale, he said. Government restrictions including stay-at-home orders, plus temporary disruptions to the supply chain for customer premise equipment, are causing delays, he said.

“It's unknown when we'll be able to complete the project” now, emailed Colorado’s Branson. “Our first PSAP migrated in January, and we were supposed to migrate all of our PSAPs one at a time over the course of 14 months, completing in February of 2021,” but many public safety answering points are “in full lockdown now to avoid contamination.”

No significant delays were noted by Texas’ primary NG-911 service providers AT&T and Motorola's Vesta, said Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications Executive Director Kelli Merriweather. “Much of the planning and engineering work is continuing and there are many other tasks that can continue to be accomplished during the ‘shut down’ period,” including geographic information systems (GIS) and routing plans, she emailed. The commission’s plan is to fully transition its 21 regions, covering about three-quarters of the state’s 254 counties and 200 PSAPs, to NG-911 by Aug. 31, 2023; other Texas 911 entities also set 2023 as the goal, she said. Most parts of Texas have emergency services IP networks, are procuring or implementing call handling equipment, and are developing and refining GIS location data, she said.

Wisconsin’s Office of Emergency Communications is focused on upgrades even as staff works remotely, said NextGen 9-1-1 Program Manager Jessica Jimenez. The state has been planning since 2017 and is in the midst of procuring for a statewide network backbone, she said. Buildout “must be carefully planned and executed with minimal to no impact to existing services, particularly in an ongoing and evolving situation.”

COVID-19 hasn't delayed Nebraska's NG-911 deployment, probably “because our state never closed anything but bars and restaurants and the restaurants have already reopened,” emailed Public Service Commissioner Crystal Rhoades, a Democrat in a state with a Republican governor. “I suppose it could change as our state has some of the highest per capita infection rates in the country.”

New York City sought to upgrade via a 2017 request for proposals. “The project is still on schedule for 2024,” and the city plans to complete an interim text-to-911 deployment by next month, said a Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications spokesperson. New York’s NG-911 RFP is “sitting out there” due to many “rigid requirements,” said F&S' Iadarola. He predicted the virus would “drive momentum to get that contract.” Accessibility advocates are hopeful texting won’t be delayed, said New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Senior Staff Attorney Maureen Belluscio. NYLPI urged immediate rollout, in an April report.

Need for NG-911

“Our experiences with the current pandemic show us that we need a 9-1-1 system that can do more, not because of call volume but because of the need for increased functionality,” Merriweather said. Next-gen would support many new functions, including telemedicine. Sharing data including blood pressure and temperature would increase situational awareness and ensure patients’ are transported “to the correct facility,” she said.

The better tech would improve rerouting call traffic if PSAPs shut, Merriweather said. “When an infected person has been in PSAP or dispatch center, the facility must be closed for days to properly disinfect according to commercial standards, and this creates the need to reroute their call traffic,” she said. “That works fine as long as the other PSAP is capable of handling the calls and dispatch, but ... it could become problematic if the other PSAPs in the area are also impacted by cases of COVID and also [are] closed or are short-staffed. Ability to dynamically reroute calls would be very helpful, as would the capability to have 9-1-1 telecommunicators answer calls from an alternate location,” even their residences.

The pandemic is a “good use case” for NG-911 that will increase pressure to migrate, emailed Colorado’s Branson. “It would much easier” to reroute calls from a PSAP closed for disinfection, send and receive pictures and video to better prepare responders, and set up telemedicine visits for initial assessments or remote triage, he said.

NYLPI sees an “uptick” in many types of accessibility cases amid the pandemic, and as with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and Hurricane Sandy, the pandemic is bringing “renewed interest” to 911 access, Belluscio said. Voice calls aren’t accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing or have other communications disabilities, she said. Text-to-911 benefits everyone in situations where it may not be safe to speak, including domestic violence, which is reported to be a rising cause of emergency calls in the pandemic (see 2005110030), she said.

First responders are now seeking to limit exposure to the virus, and that’s driving NG-911, Iadarola said. Public safety needs “expanded capabilities to identify situations where they may be at high risk,” including photo sharing and video chats that require IP-based communications, he said. Possible federal funding through coronavirus rescue legislation could “dramatically accelerate market growth,” he said. By 2025, F&S predicts contracts for NG-911 covering 85% of the population, though the IP-based systems will be deployed for 69%, and not all will be live (see 2005060033).

Editor's note: This is Part IV in an occasional series about how the novel coronavirus is affecting 911. Part III was on reporting to federal authorities of 911 reliability: 2004270046. Part II focused on emergency calls in virus hot spots: 2004130032. Part I was on keeping call takers safe: 2003180033.