Next-generation 911 will take significant, costly and long investments of time and money before the system can work, National Emergency Number Association (NENA) officials said at a Thursday USTelecom briefing. The future will spell change for regulations and the number and arrangement of 911 centers, the officials said. The U.S. “must address” NG-911 if the public switched telephone network will be sunsetted in the next few years, said NENA CEO Brian Fontes, citing the FCC’s recent push on text-to-911 and this week’s FCC Technological Advisory Council report (CD Dec 11 p2). Fontes asked USTelecom members to engage with NENA.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled an agreement with the four major national carriers to “accelerate” their ability to transmit emergency text messages to 911 call centers. The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) also signed the agreement. Industry and government officials conceded Friday much remains to be done to make widespread text-to-911 a reality.

The FCC will hold field hearings to scrutinize communications resiliency in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Chairman Julius Genachowski announced. The storm hit the East Coast starting Oct. 29 and knocked out a quarter of the cell sites in affected areas, with outages lingering long after. The hearings will begin in early 2013, starting in New York, and focus on access to 911, how resources are shared, emergency permitting and dependency on electric power and fuel, the FCC said. The agency will look at wired and wireless resiliency and produce recommendations for a stronger network, it said. Questions of new technology and jurisdictional tension remain concerns, officials told us.

The National Emergency Number Association launched a new 911 center registration website Thursday, it said (http://xrl.us/bnzto3). The new database will come with “increased functionality and improved performance” and is the result of a partnership with Digital Data Technologies, NENA said. The new website comes with better search functions, easier login, “streamlined” registration, status updates on any 911 center change requests and automated password resets, it said. Users of the registry system will be sent a prompt requesting the creation of a new username and password Thursday, it said.

The National Emergency Number Association seeks submissions of less than 20 pages each on issues related to local, state and federal governance. Sample topics include “effectively conveying issues to decision makers, enabling NG9-1-1 through regulatory review, public safety funding opportunities, and restructuring of local/region/state planning, acquisition, and ongoing management of NG9-1-1 services to better enable economic and operational effectiveness,” NENA said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnzotc). Submissions are due Dec. 17, it said, saying they should follow American Psychological Association-backed formatting style and can be submitted electronically.

The National Emergency Number Association released its standard document on “civic location” data for next-generation 911 providers for a second round of comments starting Monday, NENA said Saturday. The standards apply to location data that will be critical for routing, dispatch and mapping services of NG-911, it said. The document, which will define “the civic location data elements that will be used to support the NENA compliant Next Generation systems, databases, call routing, call handling, and related processes,” first received comments starting Sept. 5, but various factors demand more time for response, NENA said (http://xrl.us/bnp6re). “Due to the number of comments previously received and the quantity of edits and clarification that have been made to this document, it is being released for a 2nd round of public review and comments with only the edits shown being subject to review,” NENA said when releasing the new document. The new comment period ends Oct. 5. The document’s intended to be an “information source for the designers, manufacturers, administrators and operators of systems to be utilized for the purpose of processing emergency calls,” the standard document draft said (http://xrl.us/bnp6rp). It’s part of a larger series of NG-911 standards in development, the organization said.

Next-generation 911 is moving forward as text-to-911 trials continue and authorities reconsider old regulation, panelists at an FCBA emergency communications session said Wednesday night. They looked at the virtues and shortfalls of text-to-911 and considered the broader regulatory challenges 911 providers face, such as in interconnection agreements.

Verizon is completing power audits of all facilities, a review expected to conclude in the Washington region by the end of October and nationwide by March, Senior Vice President Kyle Malady told House lawmakers Wednesday. The telco will have better monitoring equipment in place by 2013, he said. Verizon understands the need to communicate better with public safety answering points and the public during disasters, he said. The Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications held the hearing on the challenges and future of resilient communications, which emphasized the problems of Verizon as well as the new technologies emergency responders are facing. Its prime focus was Verizon’s June 29 failure to maintain power in Northern Virginia during the derecho wind storms and subsequent 911 outages.

Hurricane Isaac-related calls overloaded a Louisiana public safety answering point (PSAP) Aug. 30, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) said Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnoiic), identifying the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office PSAP. “The center had been overloaded with requests for service and all the telecommunicators, who were also victims of the storm, had been working non-stop,” NENA said. An eight-member Louisiana Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce attempted to aid the PSAP, which had staff “who were pushing 40 hours on-duty without relief,” according to NENA. The PSAP had requested the task force’s aid.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Nineteen months after a national wireless network for first responders was proposed in the 2011 State of the Union address, the FirstNet’s board of directors was named Monday at the opening session of the Association of Public Communications Officials annual conference. After commending President Barack Obama for calling for the creation of the national wireless network for first responders, Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank revealed the dozen selections. Most were pleased with the selections, though the National Governors Association said it was “disappointed” by the lack of representation by current state officials.