Next-generation call handling is gaining momentum around the world, thanks to national and regional initiatives like NG911 (in the U.S. and Canada), NG112 (in the EU), NG 999 (in the UK) and NG000 (in Australia and New Zealand). These initiatives are revolutionary steps forward for the public safety industry, allowing traditional emergency systems to leverage smartphones, IoT and advanced technologies.
Watch as Hexagon’s Jack Williams, José Costa and Leah Hornacek discuss:
- How rollouts and implementations of these initiatives differ from country to country and region to region
- Technologies public safety agencies need to take full advantage of advances in call handling
- Importance of agencies not just thinking about what they need now, but also for the future
- Impact these initiatives have on residents
Watch the vodcast or read the transcript below.
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Transcript
Jack Williams:
Hi, my name is Jack Williams and I’m the Director of Portfolio Marketing for Hexagon Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial division. Thank you for joining us. I’m excited for this discussion on what I feel is a very important topic in public safety: next-generation call handling. It’s gaining momentum around the world, and primarily thanks to national and regional initiatives like NG911 in North America, NG112 in the EU, NG999 in the UK, NG000 in Australia, New Zealand, for example. These initiatives around the world are revolutionary steps really in changing the way in which call handling and dispatching work.
It represents a, I would call it a revolutionary step forward, and I’m being sincere in that because it basically allows our traditional emergency services, emergency communication centers, emergency systems at large to leverage what we all have in our pocket every day, and basically to leverage the same things you get out of your phone and also to leverage the Internet of Things and different sensors and other advanced technologies to really change the way we interact with emergency services in your respective region or country, as well as to change and revolutionize the way in which different communication centers interoperate and communicate with themselves.
So it’s really modernizing the emergency communication systems. Rollouts and implementations, if you’re listening to this vodcast, hopefully you have a little bit of background, but rollouts and you probably have your own opinion in terms of rolling this out and implementing these initiatives. These take a while to progress, right? These have been going on for a while. I will say this though, they do differ from country to country and region to region, and so that’s why I’m really excited today because I have Jose Costa, who’s based in Portugal, who works for Hexagon Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial, and Leah Hornacek who works here in the US to talk about next-generation call handling and what promises to be an insightful conversation with different perspectives from around the world.
So welcome Leah, and welcome Jose.
José Costa:
Thank you.
Leah Hornacek:
Thank you.
Jack Williams:
All right, so let’s start off with the regional aspect of this question, and I’ll start with you Jose. I mentioned global initiatives, different rollouts, different types of initiatives, be it NG911 in the US or NG112 in the EU. But I want to ask you, what do you see as the major differences in these global initiatives? Maybe things around their implementations, their success, their rollouts, what are some of the differences and nuances that you’ll find depending on the area in which you are at?
José Costa:
Okay, so I’m seeing that in Europe, the initiatives are all based on our organizations. So, the European Emergency Number Association, which is the one that is pushing the member states of the European Union to pursue this new initiative about next generation. I think even in between the regions, they are more or less aligned with the same initiatives that in the US they are making, but the go live, as you said, the rollout is quite different even between the member states in Europe. So each country is adopting it slowly but trying to follow the standards that EENA is trying to push, trying to be standard, trying to put the new communication from your mobile devices inside the public safety answering point (PSAP). All of these things are being pushed out.
Main difference I would say would be the difference between the way countries manage the core of the next generation. So it’s called the ESInet, and this is the main difference how I see things being separate. I see in the US the ESInet being supplied by the telecom operators. Some countries in Europe will also be supplied by the telecom operators. I see difference in certain countries for instance, in Portugal it’ll be the Ministry of Internal Administration that will manage the ESInet. So I think the way this is managed is a little bit of a difference between country to country even and from region to region.
Jack Williams:
Leah, any differences you see relative to the US perspective in terms of NG911, some of the differences that you might see between say here and where Jose’s at?
Leah Hornacek:
That’s actually what I would say we’re seeing as well is how that is managed and how it’s going to be implemented would be the main differences there.
Jack Williams:
Excellent. Well let me ask you this then Leah. What would you say are any similarities? Because I know a lot of these bodies like NENA, APCO, they’re global in nature. What would you say are some of the similarities that you’ll see across different regional, next-generation call handling projects and initiatives?
Leah Hornacek:
That’s probably one of my favorite parts about all of this is we’re able to come together a lot more and agree on what needs to happen. And so being able to accept the calls from multiple different devices and sources from different places and process the information similarly, it’s not going to be all the same but to the best as they can, I think that communication that we have across the globe is really helping drive that initiative forward and so we’re sticking to those standards and that’s definitely something that we’re doing similarly across the globe.
Jack Williams:
Yeah. Jose, any comments from you on that?
José Costa:
No, I believe that the standards, as Leah was mentioning, are the most important things at this point because you’re making a phone call with your mobile phone. Mobile phones are global in nature, so you’d have your Google, your Apple device to call whatever emergency number there is on the country and you call it the same way with location data, with information helpful for the public safety agency. All of that will be more standard in the future with these next-generation implementations.
Jack Williams:
Excellent. All right, so let’s pivot questions here Leah and get a question. So I want to ask in terms of what kind of technologies, and maybe a better question would be is maybe to give maybe a thousand-foot view of what Next Generation 911 is and also what types of technologies do you feel that are imperative that agencies are thinking about that they need to take advantage of in order to adapt to these advances, to this revolution in the way call handling’s done? There’s a lot of core systems involved in public safety, curated dispatch, records management, mobile applications, field applications, analytics. How are these affected by NG911? So maybe kind of a two-part question there, Leah.
Leah Hornacek:
That’s a big question and in terms of NG911, it really is being able to make a call or contact emergency services multiple different ways. Right now, primarily it’s voice only and to say that okay, if you have text to 911, you’re NG911, that’s not the case. It’s text, it’s video, it’s pictures, it’s being able to take that data in and transfer it to other PSAPs or emergency communication centers outside of your jurisdiction and maybe not just your neighbor throughout the state. I live in Michigan, it’s imperative for a lot of our agencies on the border of Canada to be able to communicate with one another. And so it’s taking emergency services and really expanding it as far as we can go so that we keep everyone safe and our responses are efficient. That’s just kind of my view of Next-Gen 911 at this point.
But we have to be able to use everything that we communicate on from PCs to laptops to watches to smartphones, to anything that the public would reasonably expect that they could summon an emergency response. And so it’s a tall order, but I think we’re definitely making progress, which is great. And then in terms of the services, CAD, records, JMS, analytics, it all has to be able to take that information in and in not a complicated way, I don’t know how to say that better, but it really needs to be seamless across those platforms so that data isn’t compromised, so that responders can understand it and use it and implement it every day in the field.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, thanks for that. I get it. I mean to the end consumer or the citizen and the public at large, it should be seamless to them. There’s an expectation that you can communicate with your public safety agencies, emergency communication centers same way you do with 90% of probably your other interactions with the rest of the modern world. And from a technology perspective, and maybe Jose, you can maybe dive a little bit deeper into this, what do these core systems… what can they take advantage of or what do they need to be equipped with? I mean obviously here at Hexagon we’re a provider of public safety solutions and technologies that are what I would call the central nervous system of emergency communication. What do you feel was imperative for agencies to think about when talking about adopting these new standards and their core solutions that they have in place today?
José Costa:
So I think for our customers, the main focus will be on the call takers, the ones that take the calls. Those persons will have to be able to do as they do with Teams or they do with other types of modern communication, with Zoom or whatever, they answer calls, they answer text as Leah was saying. They answer, they receive messages and all these things. And the most important thing is to have the ability to do that in the product itself and all those things about next generation, about routing, the ability to route the call to… or the contact better to say, to the correct site is important.
But being able to receive all that data, receiving the video, receiving the real-time text, receiving all of that is the key, most important factor for the application itself for the users that receive all this data. The underlying technology of all of this is typically SIP, session initiated protocol, which is a way of signaling and communication back and forth between like we do with Teams or other applications like that. And the call takers would have to also to adapt to that. Call takers will need to not just answer the phone and talk to somebody but interact with that person on the other side of line communication device that is on the other side.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, so I mean it’s changing not only the… it’s enabling new ways to connect to the emergency 911, 000 system, wherever you may be. It allows more connectivity options, but it also changes the workflow of call takers and dispatchers who have been doing this job for years in traditional systems. So it’s got to be seamless and sort of user experience perspective built in sort of next generation ready, would you say? And is that accurate?
José Costa:
You use your smartphone for communicating with somebody, you talk and just draw a video call to your WhatsApp group or something like that. It’s seamless. Everybody picks up a smartphone and starts using it, even kids. So you have to do the same way on the answering point, which is the guys that are taking the emergency calls, they will have to do the same. So they will have to be able to do all of these things. So a process change for them for sure because it’s a different technology, not what they used to as they were saying, but they’ll have to adapt to that. But I think it’s easy to adapt right? Everybody nowadays uses smartphones and they know how to do this without huge amounts of training, so it must be very easy to use.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, I can definitely see that. Okay, so I got another one for you. So I hear this in many of my conversations around next generation, I’m going to refer to it as NG911 because I’m in the US, but next-generation call handling, everybody always says, “What is NG911?” And most people say, “Oh, it’s text and video to the call center,” right? I think that’s a misnomer. I don’t think that’s accurate. I think it’s much more than that, but oftentimes it’s just viewed as texting and video and sort of IP-ifying maybe some location data with your cell phone. While those are capabilities I think that next generation call handling brings, I think that’s like step one. I think there’s a lot of mutual aid, routing, interoperability built across these different ESInets that can really sort of take the NG911 today from this sort of rock gravel road to this technological superhighway. That’s my car metaphor for this.
With that said, today a lot of people are thinking, “Okay, I need to implement this. What I’m focused on now is being able to receive text or incorporate some video,” but how important is it for agencies not just to think about the basic minimum definition of what people sometimes view as NG911, what do they need to think about as things evolve? What do they need to think about as emergency communications evolve and the systems evolved are built to take full advantage of more than just text to 911, right? Or built to take advantage of the whole infrastructure, the whole protocol and standards and compliance that next generation call handling encompasses. So I know it’s important to focus on those things today to start the ball rolling, but Jose, what do they need to be thinking about as things continue to evolve with regards to NG911?
José Costa:
You need to evolve what you have today. Maybe you have some legacy networks, maybe you have some legacy telephone systems and stuff like that that needs to be changed. You need to move up to a full IP world for instance. That’s something you need to be looking out for and being able to receive this, partner with somebody that follows the standards, I think would be very important, as Hexagon does. We follow the standards, so we need to be aware of… the public safety agencies need to be aware of following the standards, exchanging information with other agencies or as Leah was saying, with other countries or other regions in a standard way and moving through standards, not a specific interface because it was done many years ago. No, move away from that. Move to the standards. I would say that’s one of the most important things. Move the infrastructure and move to standards.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, makes sense. Leah, what are your thoughts on that? What does NG911… I know you know it brings more to the table than just text and video.
Leah Hornacek:
It brings a ton to the table.
Jack Williams:
What do they need to be thinking of moving forward?
Leah Hornacek:
Infrastructure, the standards, and then I think what’s next. What could we possibly be using next? What can we ingest next that helps us not only keep communities and responders safe, but also creates more efficiencies in the dispatch center? Just really, there’s some wild ideas out there. You can… One example-
Leah Hornacek:
I mean, one example too I like to use is the keyboard. Our telecommunicators that we’re going to be hiring in the future, are they going to use a modern keyboard or will they be better off dispatching from a PlayStation controller? I know that that’s wild to think about. Or maybe texting how they text on their phones. Sometimes I can text faster than I can type on a keyboard. So that’s just one tiny little piece of it. But really what’s the public’s expectation again on how they contact their emergency services, and can we take that in and create an effective response?
Jack Williams:
Excellent. I’ll tell you what, if it comes down to PlayStation controller, my son with his Fortnite capability, he may have a future career here.
Leah Hornacek:
That’s the generation, right? We have to start catering to that. You never know.
Jack Williams:
I’m serious. It’s amazing. And I’m just like, “Okay, let’s play Madden.” Anyways, all right. So kind of building off your statement there, Leah, what impact do you think next-generation call handling will have on everyday citizens, everyday residents of an area? What do you think these impacts next generation call handling will have to just the person who needs to leverage, the citizen who needs to leverage the community, who needs to leverage 911 or 000 or emergency services across the globe?
Leah Hornacek:
Honestly, I think they’re going to have more confidence contacting their emergency services since they have more than one way to do it and they’re able to send more than just their own voice and relay an event. Say you have a structure fire, you take that call, and they tell you what the address is and you get it into the system and then you start asking them details, would it be faster to be able to see it and they can relay that information and that way there’s less room for error? So I think it will build a sense of confidence with the general public and have a good transparent relationship.
Jack Williams:
Yeah. Jose, I’ve heard some stories of some vendors out there. They’ll text you a video link or maybe you can click on that and show them actual live footage or I think what rapid SOS has got some what I would call next generation like services that change the way in which you interact and share information. What do you think Jose, out in Europe and Portugal, in terms of what can residents… what will the impact be to them?
José Costa:
Well, let me give you an example. In Portugal here, we implemented an app for the deaf people and it’s next generation-like because it texts, it also shares video and you have your translation. But imagine doing this instead of bespoke development of an application. It’s standard on your phone and you’ll be able, for a deaf citizen, you can sign language to whoever is on the other side. So even that will bring more of a common approach for every citizen, so instead of specific situation. So I agree that the citizens will be a lot better off with something that is a lot standard than a way of communicating in many different ways to the PSAP.
Leah Hornacek:
It really does that any device anywhere, anytime.
José Costa:
Exactly.
Leah Hornacek:
It meets that mission of Next Gen 911.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, and I can see how that would be very appealing to the public. Everybody wants safer communities. I want to be able to leverage, especially with this new generation, I’ve got two 10-year-olds. I mean, they have an expectation of communication that’s a little different than mine and we need to be prepared for the future. One last question, and it’s kind of something that we do, Jose, what’s our stance at Hexagon on Next Generation 911? What are we doing? Any parting thoughts you have? What is our vision here at Hexagon with regards to next generation call handling?
José Costa:
So I know our product team is developing the standards of receiving the emergency objects that are standard for the next generation communication. So be able to collect all that data, be able to present all that data to the users so that they can do whatever they have to do to dispatch, to create additional events, even to send out to third-party agencies that are interconnected with the first agency that collected the contact. Being able to send out also through the same standards. We are implementing those standards today so that we are ready for the next generation.
Jack Williams:
Thanks. Leah, any comments from you on sort of our approach at Hexagon? I know we pride ourselves not only in being a technology vendor, but a partner. Any thoughts you may have around what we’re doing at Hexagon with regards to NG911, some of the things you’ve witnessed personally?
Leah Hornacek:
Yeah, I think we do a really great job of partnering with various vendors like you said, where those resources and tools that we need are at our fingertips as a telecommunicator where I’m not logging into multiple systems, that’s not efficient. And so we do a great job of keeping up with the standards and public expectation and what’s coming down the line next and integrating that into our system so that those on the other end can use them efficiently.
Jack Williams:
Awesome. Well any parting thoughts from either one of you before we jump off here? I’m wrapping it up.
Leah Hornacek:
I’m excited for what’s next.
José Costa:
Yeah, that’s true. Being with Hexagon allows us also to be at the tip of this technology and being able to provide assistance to the public and to public safety agencies. And Hexagon is a good technology partner to do that. So this is one of the aspects I like working at Hexagon is exactly this, being able to be there where it counts.
Jack Williams:
Yeah, I agree 100% Jose, and that’s a nice thing. I think Hexagon Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial, we got our eye on the ball. We understand it’s a partnership. Yes, technology’s core and we need to build next generation. It’s got to be baked into the cake for it to work seamlessly because it is a change, but it’s a very positive change both for the community and citizens as well as effectiveness, efficiency and more data to make better decisions in the communication center. And I know we’re committed to that and we appreciate all the volunteers at these different bodies who develop these standards.
And I know there’s a lot of conferences and there’s a lot of sharing of information that’s happened over the past several years. It’s transformative work. We appreciate all those public safety professionals who do that. We have quite a few of our own that work in Hexagon that are very engaged in these organizations and we appreciate what the community’s done and we’re going to stay here and be ready for this revolutionary step that I think will benefit us all. So once again, I want to thank Leah and Jose for taking the time to talk about next-generation call handling, some of the stuff we’re doing here at Hexagon, some of the differences and things you need to think about moving forward. So for the audience, thank you very much for your time and join us again on a future Hexagon SIG vodcast. Thank you.
José Costa:
Thank you.
Leah Hornacek:
Thank you.
José Costa:
Thanks, Jack. Thank you, Leah.
