Greenwood Village [Denver], Colo. —
On June 1, 2012, Hardin County ushered in a new era of 9-1-1 responsiveness for the state of Tennessee. The county’s public service entity was the first of several in the state of Tennessee to install and deploy the Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) call-handling system that uses the visionary microDATA platform. This 9-1-1 system offers many benefits to Hardin County’s 26,000-plus residents, although this launch offers even broader benefits for all the state’s citizens.
Benefits of Next Generation 9-1-1 Call Handling for Tennessee
A major element to Next Generation 9-1-1 is its use of Internet Protocol (IP) telephone technology to save time, money and lives. Tennessee’s server-centric solution, provided by the microDATA platform, is known as an Emergency Services Internet Network (ESINet). It will help dismantle forty-plus years of proprietary 9-1-1 hardware-based systems that are currently being used by many of the nation’s 9-1-1 agencies.
An extensive list of benefits related to this Next Generation 9-1-1 call-handling movement is now available to Hardin County’s citizens and its 9-1-1 call takers, to include:
- An extended longevity of government investment
- The ability to procure equipment in an open and competitive market
- More robust user features that take advantage of IP technology, which is a quickly growing communications technology being utilized by citizens across the country
- The rapid sharing of information among participating agencies.
When a caller uses a landline phone to dial 9-1-1, their exact location is identified to emergency services even before their call is answered. Address details are transferred to other parties along with the call itself for immediate action, thereby saving precious minutes for dispatchers. Advancements over the past 10 years have made it possible to far more accurately plot the location of wireless 9-1-1 callers, thereby automatically sending those calls to the proper PSAP (Public Service Answering Point). With NG9-1-1 technology, calls intended for one jurisdiction can be intelligently routed elsewhere—complete with all associated location details—in the event the original location has suffered a power blackout or some other unexpected outage.
The ability for 9-1-1 dispatch centers to share information on a statewide—and ultimately nationwide—basis is one of the greatest benefits to the overall concept of an ESINet. Once state and federal agencies become part of such a network, coordinated responses to large-scale disasters will become far easier to organize.
The NG9-1-1 System
One factor that motivated Hardin County officials to purchase microDATA’s Next Generation 9-1-1 solution was its direct compatibility with the forthcoming Tennessee ESInet, as well as its “out of the box” compliance with current and emerging NG9-1-1 national standards. microDATA is a growing choice of Tennessee local governments to ensure their continued 9-1-1 service delivery, plus its ready ability to connect to emerging NG9-1-1 services that will soon be available throughout Tennessee and in many other states across the country.
The microDATA product suite, which includes its industry-leading xSwitch™ and xT911™ products, was selected as the fundamental element for building out the next-generation ESInet that will soon involve all of Tennessee’s Emergency Communications Districts. By employing Internet-based telephone technology and coupling it with a comprehensive set of industry-produced 9-1-1standards, the dependability, redundancy and content-handling capacity of Hardin County’s emergency response system has been significantly elevated, a level soon to be available to the entire state of Tennessee.
About microDATA:
In business since 1983, microDATA has built a number of innovative solutions designed to improve the process of handling 9-1-1 emergency calling services, including the impending use of text and video. By combining GIS (Geographic Information Services) technology with Internet Protocol (IP) capabilities, the company’s core services—and its dedication to i3-compliant NG9-1-1 solutions—offer to the public safety industry a new generation of map-centric solutions that reduce response times, lower infrastructure costs, and ultimately save more lives.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Sam Bard, Director of Sales and Marketing
microDATA
5613 DTC Parkway, Suite 950
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Tel: (800) 722-6663, x895
sbard@md-911.com
www.md-911.com
Follow us on Twitter: @microDATAGIS |
