Departments of Transportation and Commerce Announces $109 Million in Grants On August 9, 2019, the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Commerce announced federal 911 grants being made available to 34 states and 2 tribal nations to help PSAPs upgrade 9-1-1 systems to Next Generation 9-1-1, or NG911. The funding will power basic […]
Radio and Television Networks Being Tested On August 7, 2019, FEMA in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission, will be conducting a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). The nationwide EAS test will be sent to radio and television stations beginning at 2:20 p.m. ET. This year’s test will focus solely on radio […]
Wide-Scale Wireless Outage Affects 9-1-1 Services On Tuesday, July 30, Verizon Wireless customers across Iowa, Ilinois and Wisconsin experienced an outage of services that included the ability to call 9-1-1. Per Verizon representatives, their network encountered a hardware issue that rendered services unavailable. “We are currently experiencing a network issue impacting wireless service for some […]
Voters Approve 9-1-1 Funding Levy with Typo In May, the Columbia County 9-1-1 Communications District in St. Helens, Oregon put forth a tax levy for funding to their voters to approve an operations levy taxing property owners “.29 cents per $1,000” of assessed property value. Although the wording on the ballot had been proofed by […]
Reclassification Bill gets passed by U.S. House On July 12th, the 911 Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services Act of 2019, otherwise known as the 911SAVES Act was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. The act will help further efforts to reclassify 9-1-1 professionals as protective service class workers. The bill is actively being […]
First Responders and Community Oppose Government Leaders Plans Despite proposed efficiencies, the consolidation of six 911 PSAPs in Lucas County, Ohio has met with significant opposition. That opposition comes from not only the dispatchers that work in those PSAPs and community citizens, but also 2 of the city councils involved in the plan. Lucas County […]
Nationwide Outage for AT&T Wireless Customers Early Tuesday morning, 9-1-1 PSAPs began posting to their respective social media accounts about a 9-1-1 outage for AT&T Wireless customers. Citizens with AT&T cellular service were unable to call 9-1-1 for emergency assistance for at least 2 hours. As early as 06:30am CST, social media accounts for 9-1-1 […]
9-1-1 Employees Protest to Bring Attention to PSAP Staffing Employees of the Illinois Quad Cities Communications Center, also known as QComm911, staged a protest outside of the Milan Municipal Building last Thursday. Along with their supporters and members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), their purpose was to bring attention […]
Los Angeles County settles lawsuit with 11-year old Ashley Flores’ family Almost a year and half after several misrouted 9-1-1 calls caused a delay in paramedic response, Los Angeles County (California) settled a lawsuit with the family of Ashley Flores in the amount of $3 million dollars. On Christmas Eve 2017, Ashley Flores, who suffered […]
As of June 7, 2019, 15 more agencies across the country have reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that they have successfully implemented Text-to-911 in the PSAP for their service areas. FCC: Text-to-911 PSAP Master Registry FCC rules require all wireless carriers and other providers of text messaging applications in the United States to […]
