47 research outputs found
E-911, Emergency Communications Funding in Tennessee
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/govpubs-tn-advisory-commission-intergovernmental-relations-miscellaneous-reports/1036/thumbnail.jp
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Telecommunications: Uneven Implementation of Wireless Enhanced 911 Raises Prospect of Piecemeal Availability for Years to Come
A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "When an emergency call is placed to 911, prompt response depends on knowing the location of the caller. Enhanced 911 (E911) service automatically provides this critical information. E911 is in place in most of the country for traditional wireline telephone service, where the telephone number is linked to a street address. Expanding E911 capabilities to mobile phones is inherently more challenging because of the need to determine the caller's geographic location at the moment the call is made. Concerns have been raised about the pace of wireless E911 implementation and whether this service will be available nationwide. GAO reviewed the progress being made in implementing wireless E911 service, the factors affecting this progress, and the role of the federal government in facilitating the nationwide deployment of wireless E911 service.
Texas 9-1-1 News
Newsletter of the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications discussing news and activities of the organization as well as other information related to 9-1-1 services and other emergency communication within Texas
An Inquiry Regarding the Development of an Effectual Architecture Framework Supporting Next Generation 9-1-1
The emergency 9-1-1 service is a vital part of our nation â„¢s emergency response and disaster preparedness systems. At last count there were 6100 Public Safety Answering Points across the United States, 97 of those reside in the State of Colorado, and the citizens of the United States cannot email, text, or instant message these types of non-traditional communication to those Public Safety Answering Points due to technological limitations. The trends in personal communication technologies are accelerating the obsolescence of the current 9-1-1 systems. The Public Safety Answering Point of today is designed to accept and process voice media only; and proved successful in delivering emergency services in times of personal, regional, and national need. The current circuit-switched infrastructure of the 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point network cannot receive digital data (e.g., text messages, email, photographs, and video) from the communication devices commonly used by the public today. A national movement known as Next Generation 9-1-1 is underway that will support non-traditional communication digital data processing in the Public Safety Answering Point. This case study will attempt to determine if practical service oriented architecture methodology can be used in the development of an effectual architecture framework supporting the Next Generation 9-1-1framework and the nontraditional communication technology within the Public Safety Answering Points of Colorado
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Next Generation Emergency Call System with Enhanced Indoor Positioning
The emergency call systems in the United States and elsewhere are
undergoing a transition from the PSTN-based legacy system to a new
IP-based system. The new system is referred to as the Next Generation
9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) or NG112 system. We have built a prototype NG9-1-1
system which features media convergence and data integration that are
unavailable in the current emergency calling system.
The most important piece of information in the NG9-1-1 system is the
caller's location. The caller's location is used for routing the call
to the appropriate call center. The emergency responders use the
caller's location to find the caller. Therefore, it is essential to
determine the caller's location as precisely as possible to minimize
delays in emergency response. Delays in response may result in loss
of lives.
When a person makes an emergency call outdoors using a mobile phone,
the Global Positioning System (GPS) can provide the caller's location
accurately. Indoor positioning, however, presents a challenge. GPS
does not generally work indoors because satellite signals do not
penetrate most buildings. Moreover, there is an important difference
between determining location outdoors and indoors. Unlike outdoors,
vertical accuracy is very important in indoor positioning because an
error of few meters will send emergency responders to a different
floor in a building, which may cause a significant delay in reaching
the caller.
This thesis presents a way to augment our NG9-1-1 prototype system
with a new indoor positioning system. The indoor positioning system
focuses on improving the accuracy of vertical location. Our goal is
to provide floor-level accuracy with minimum infrastructure support.
Our approach is to use a user's smartphone to trace her vertical
movement inside buildings. We utilize multiple sensors available in
today's smartphones to enhance positioning accuracy.
This thesis makes three contributions. First, we present a hybrid
architecture for floor localization with emergency calls in mind. The
architecture combines beacon-based infrastructure and sensor-based
dead reckoning, striking a balance between accurately determining a
user's location and minimizing the required infrastructure. Second,
we present the elevator module for tracking a user's movement in an
elevator. The elevator module addresses three core challenges that
make it difficult to accurately derive displacement from acceleration.
Third, we present the stairway module which determines the number of
floors a user has traveled on foot. Unlike previous systems that
track users' foot steps, our stairway module uses a novel landing
counting technique.
Additionally, this thesis presents our work on designing and
implementing an NG9-1-1 prototype system. We first demonstrate how
emergency calls from various call origination devices are identified,
routed to the proper Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) based on the
caller's location, and terminated by the call taker software at the
PSAP. We then show how text communications such as Instant Messaging
and Short Message Service can be integrated into the NG9-1-1
architecture. We also present GeoPS-PD, a polygon simplification
algorithm designed to improve the performance of location-based
routing. GeoPS-PD reduces the size of a polygon, which represents the
service boundary of a PSAP in the NG9-1-1 system
Preventing Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks on the IMS Emergency Services Support through Adaptive Firewall Pinholing
Emergency services are vital services that Next Generation Networks (NGNs)
have to provide. As the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is in the heart of NGNs,
3GPP has carried the burden of specifying a standardized IMS-based emergency
services framework. Unfortunately, like any other IP-based standards, the
IMS-based emergency service framework is prone to Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS) attacks. We propose in this work, a simple but efficient solution that
can prevent certain types of such attacks by creating firewall pinholes that
regular clients will surely be able to pass in contrast to the attackers
clients. Our solution was implemented, tested in an appropriate testbed, and
its efficiency was proven.Comment: 17 Pages, IJNGN Journa
The Future of 9-1-1: New Technologies and the Need for Reform
Our nation\u27s 9-1-1 system\u27s success to date belies the fact that its core premises will not continue to serve it effectively and it has come to a critical juncture. In particular, the balkanized nature of 9-1-1 operations that differ across jurisdictions and are supported by Byzantine funding mechanisms obscure a simple but profound development: our nation\u27s emergency system is not keeping up with or taking advantage of technological change. Because the system continues to work and policymakers largely do not appreciate the system\u27s technological limitations, decision makers not only fail to focus on this challenge but instead are all too willing to raid 9-1-1 funds to put them to other uses. Accordingly, our emergency communications networks are unable to accommodate what is increasingly viewed as basic functionality inherent in many of today\u27s advanced technologies.
This Article sets forth a coherent vision concerning the opportunity to transition to a next generation 9-1-1 network. To be sure, the United States\u27 9-1-1 system is hardly a monolith and prescriptions for its evolution cannot be reduced to simple one size fits all solutions. In practice, the system is comprised of numerous jurisdictions (including over 6000 Public Safety Answering Points); myriad governance structures and controls which vary across jurisdictions; a ballooning number of service providers; and a diversity of funding amounts and models that differ across jurisdictional boundaries. The result, not surprisingly, is a fractured and complicated system where policy is highly contingent on parochial and often political perspectives.
To reform today\u27s balkanized 9-1-1 landscape, we recommend that: (1) clear leadership and vision embrace the need to transition the 9-1-1 system to a next generation architecture; (2) more effective state oversight provide both the funding and logistical support necessary to make this happen; and (3) localities should remain responsible for providing access to 9-1-1, but that they must be supported from higher levels of government as well as industry to exercise that responsibility. In short, there is an important opportunity for thoughtful leadership and vigilant policy reform that will serve the goals of 9-1-1 emergency response far more effectively than the policies currently in place
The Future of 9-1-1: New Technologies and the Need for Reform
Our nation\u27s 9-1-1 system\u27s success to date belies the fact that its core premises will not continue to serve it effectively and it has come to a critical juncture. In particular, the balkanized nature of 9-1-1 operations that differ across jurisdictions and are supported by Byzantine funding mechanisms obscure a simple but profound development: our nation\u27s emergency system is not keeping up with or taking advantage of technological change. Because the system continues to work and policymakers largely do not appreciate the system\u27s technological limitations, decision makers not only fail to focus on this challenge but instead are all too willing to raid 9-1-1 funds to put them to other uses. Accordingly, our emergency communications networks are unable to accommodate what is increasingly viewed as basic functionality inherent in many of today\u27s advanced technologies.
This Article sets forth a coherent vision concerning the opportunity to transition to a next generation 9-1-1 network. To be sure, the United States\u27 9-1-1 system is hardly a monolith and prescriptions for its evolution cannot be reduced to simple one size fits all solutions. In practice, the system is comprised of numerous jurisdictions (including over 6000 Public Safety Answering Points); myriad governance structures and controls which vary across jurisdictions; a ballooning number of service providers; and a diversity of funding amounts and models that differ across jurisdictional boundaries. The result, not surprisingly, is a fractured and complicated system where policy is highly contingent on parochial and often political perspectives.
To reform today\u27s balkanized 9-1-1 landscape, we recommend that: (1) clear leadership and vision embrace the need to transition the 9-1-1 system to a next generation architecture; (2) more effective state oversight provide both the funding and logistical support necessary to make this happen; and (3) localities should remain responsible for providing access to 9-1-1, but that they must be supported from higher levels of government as well as industry to exercise that responsibility. In short, there is an important opportunity for thoughtful leadership and vigilant policy reform that will serve the goals of 9-1-1 emergency response far more effectively than the policies currently in place