A single national system for 911 data could promote upgrades to next-generation 911, said public safety and emergency-number officials. Comments were due Wednesday on a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration request for information (docket NHTSA-2016-0069) about setting up a nationally uniform data system for 911 public safety answering point (PSAP) call data and local and state 911 system operations data (see 1607070008). Commenters said possible barriers to a national system are convincing software vendors to share data and locating enough funding.

Fake 911 calls to public safety answering points remain a major problem, said National Emergency Number Association officials in a meeting with FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson and others from the bureau. The FCC sought comment last year on whether to drop a 1996 requirement that cellphones that are no longer in service must still be able to make calls to 911 (see 1504020047). The FCC refers to these nonconnected devices as non-service-initialized (NSI) phones. “NENA’s representatives reiterated the extreme importance of solving the NSI problem quickly, and urged the Bureau to work with carriers and other stakeholders to develop novel and viable solutions to this ongoing crisis,” said a filing in docket 08-51.

The District of Columbia is reviewing its processes after learning human error led to a 100-minute outage of the 911 system in the District of Columbia over the weekend. The outage initially was reported as an equipment failure (see 1608290027). Now, a D.C. Office of Unified Communications spokesman said officials have determined the failure was caused by a contractor hitting an emergency shutoff button. A National Emergency Number Association official said developing standards and best practices for 911 centers could prevent similar outages at other such centers.

The National Emergency Number Association said the transition from text telephone (TTY) to real-time text (RTT) technology is critical, but the FCC should take into account concerns of 911 call centers. NENA recommended a phased rollout to address public safety concerns. Industry'smajor concern has been that the FCC not micromanage how carriers deploy RTT, but NENA raised another matter (see 1607260020).

The NG911 NOW Coalition backed a comprehensive national plan for the deployment of next-generation 911. NG911’s stated goal is to retire legacy 911 systems by the end of 2020. The coalition also promised in the report Monday to provide a “high-level cost estimate” for deploying NG911 across the U.S. and to “secure additional funding for NG9-1-1 through federal legislation.” Coalition officials said they're developing a legislative strategy to better bring the message to Capitol Hill. The coalition is made up of the National Emergency Number Association, the National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) and the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCERT).

Top 911 associations are seeking to raise awareness about state 911 fee diversion, in which some states use 911 fees on consumer bills to pay for things not directly related. The FCC estimated diversion led to $223.4 million of 911 fee revenue going to other purposes in 2014. In Part I of this report, we found that the three states said to do the most diversion seemed unlikely to quit the practice soon (see 1605270020). In interviews last week, emergency response leaders said achieving 100 percent usage of 911 fees for 911 service is critical to maintaining emergency response service quality, adequately staffing 911 centers, and funding upgrades to Next-Generation 911 so people can send multimedia to emergency responders.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., pressed FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on whether the agency played a role in the recent creation of the NG911 NOW Coalition and on how his office handles the potential discussion of nonpublic information with members of the news media and other officials. He sent the letter Friday and requested answers to several questions by April 4. The FCC received the letter and is reviewing it, said an agency spokesman, declining further comment.

The NG911 NOW Coalition Tuesday called for national action to make Next-Generation 911 a reality nationwide by 2020. Coalition members include the National Association of State 911 Administrators, the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies and the National Emergency Number Association. “NG911 will enhance the 911 system to create a faster, more flexible, resilient, and scalable system that allows 911 to keep up with communication technology used by the public,” the coalition said in a news release. “Citizens in need of emergency assistance will be able to transmit photos, videos and other forms of broadband data and applications to 911 professionals, in addition to making a traditional voice call or sending a text message.” “Over the past year, I have been very vocal about the fact that the transition to Next Generation 911 is stalled and we need an all-out effort to accelerate it,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. “Today’s announcement of a new coalition to hasten the NG911 transition is welcome news. Modernizing the nation’s 911 system will take work from many stakeholders -- including the FCC, state and local 911 authorities and legislatures, industry, and Congress -- but together we can save lives.” NTCA said rural call centers “face significant challenges to upgrading their systems; among them, the current 911 funding model is broken and ineffective at supporting existing services, let alone advanced capabilities.” Monday, Wheeler spoke on the issue at the NENA conference (see 1602220048).

It is "imperative" the implementation of next-generation 911 (NG911) systems happens "now" nationwide, and that there is a universality of the technologies used in the new IP-based systems, FCC officials and emergency communications experts said Monday during a National Emergency Number Association event. Panelists and NENA members also stressed the need for passage of "comprehensive" multiline telephone system (MLTS) legislation, as well as recurring funding sources for local public safety answering points (PSAPs) and robust cybersecurity protections for NG-911 systems.

APCO urged the FCC to take prompt action to sunset a requirement that retired handsets, known as non-service-initialized (NSI) devices, still be able to connect to 911. APCO cited a November filing by CTIA in which the wireless association said no one has a count on how many 2G phones are still in circulation and are being used by some as a way of calling 911 in an emergency. CTIA estimated as many as 136 million 2G handsets are still in circulation, but will no longer be able to contact 2G at some point as carriers shut down their 2G networks. That dynamic is important, APCO said. “Reduced NSI access to 9-1-1 resulting from technology retirements will only worsen as carriers shut down 2G, and then 3G networks,” the filing said. “To address this situation, it should be the wireless industry, not [911 call centers], that leads efforts to educate affected consumers. The carriers should be responsible for managing expectations related to their networks, and their responsibility includes educating all affected parties, not just their remaining subscribers.” APCO officials said they met with Public Safety Bureau staff to discuss the problem. National Emergency Number Association officials reported on a separate meeting with bureau staffers on the issue. “NENA’s representatives stressed the extreme importance of solving the NSI problem on a short timeframe,” NENA said. “We explained that the cost burden to Public Safety Answering Points from the added equipment, telecommunications services, and personnel required to handle the flood of NSI calls -- most of which do not relate to actual emergencies -- has become unsustainable.” The filings were posted in docket 08-51. CTIA did not comment.