Communication ExecutiveDirector Jose Santiago

Imagine a woman who has locked herself in her bedroom becauseher ex-boyfriend has broken into her home. A voice call on her cellphone could alert him to where she is in the house, nevertheless a textmessage to 911 could quietly alert police.

The woman called instead of texting

"Had the woman called instead of texting, the ex-boyfriend wouldhave heard her calling for help," Black Hawk County 911 centerDirector Judy Flores was reported saying in Homeland SecurityToday.

When the Longview City Council on Thursday approved the purchaseof equipment and software for a Then Generation 911-capable phonesystem, it all in all put text-message-receiving technology for the time being twoyears away from being possible here.

Officials say in spite of the city's and state's lag in changingwith the times, getting the Emergency Callworx system from aCalifornia vendor for less cost eventually than Longview'sexisting 911 phone system might be the steal of the 21st Century,to date.

"I would say we are for all that playing catch-up, to a certain degree.This is a huge step in the right direction," LongviewCommunications Administrator Matt Ainsworth said. "The state itselfis as a matter of fact playing catch-up, to tell you the truth. They are inthe process of developing and installing a statewide voice system,Voice over Internet Protocol, for 911. It's something that we haveto be prepared for hereafter because we don't know what thatinfrastructure will be but."

It is that uncertainty which national, state and regionalcommunication leaders plan to bridge over in the at once decade totransfrom a 43-year-old national 911 system reliant on phone linesinto a 911 system that not only accepts text messages, photos,videos and email messages however also allows for a seamless transferof emergency calls from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, or one localaccess and transport area to another LATA.

The standards out

"It may be two years earlier NENA has the standards out and previously we are ready to enjoythat innovation," Rees said. "The people that are out there right there at the forefront, theyare doing it as an incentive with a particular vendor to try thesethings. They are pilot projects. It is not available widely and notdeployed widely at this stage."

Madison, Ala.-based Emergency Callworx formed a partnership in2009 with California-based public safety software solutionsprovider Hitech Systems. Emergency Callworx focuses on NextGeneration 9-1-1 and Voice over Internet Protocol solutions,just as Skype and Vonage.

According to hitech.com, the Emergency Callworx CallStationdelivers call taking and mapping, at a lower cost, for agenciesthat have a dispatch application however need to add the latest VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol),wireless mobile and Then Generation 9-1-1 enhancements.

An important goal of the system is to take 911 calls that comevia text message or through VoIP providers just as Skype andVonage. The system as well aims to receive traffic accident dataimmediately from navigation services just as OnStar. Call taking isavailable directly from the map with the support of traditional9-1-1 and mapped features in a single smooth workflow, withcomputer-aided design interfaces provided.

The point that we are ready for the future

"This gets us to the point that we are ready for the future,"Rees said. "The equipment we have today, it is not compatible withmoving forward with a VoIP service. This system is."

Calls will continue to come in to Longview's 911 CommunicationsCenter on West Cotton Street through the AT&T backbone, shesaid.

Emergency Callworx is expected to improve location and mappingaccuracy for residents who call 911 from a VoIP phone service. Acustomer who moved to Texas from Colorado might have brought theirVonage phone number with them, however Emergency Callworx will allowLongview 911 to pinpoint the caller's current location, Ainsworthsaid.

"Right now, for a landline, we use what's called an MSAG; that'sa Master Straight Address Guide. Your number pops up, matches withthat number and the address guide says, 'This is where you live.'With VoIP services coming online like Vonage and stuff of the same type,it's an absolutely different ball game because you are not set to aspecific location," Ainsworth said. "So, as far as improvements inthe location process go, that's going to depend on how the statedesigns the system and how we interact with it."

The state infrastructure side of the equation is key when itcomes to connectivity and the ability to seamlessly transfer callsamong jurisdictions.

Today, if a caller reports an incident in Kilgore, Longview 911has a one-button transfer, however it dials Kilgore's ten-digitnon-emergency number. With a statewide VoIP network, "it willseamlessly go from 911 to 911," Rees said, and allow eachjurisdiction access to necessary information about the servicecall.

Plus, cell phones whose emergency calls bounce off a cell toweroutside the necessary jurisdiction would no longer be as great aproblem, she said, because "whenever we are all connected togetherto a VoIP system, at the time it will allow seamless transfer ofinformation."

The Emergency Callworx software

Purchasing the Emergency Callworx software and equipment willcost the city $368,497. And during that's $368,497 more than thecost of staying with a communications system that has worked thepast five years for the city, Ainsworth revealed to City Councilmembers that there are savings in the end.

The city in 2006 paid $20,000 for its existing 911 phone systemand $30,000 annually for maintenance, Ainsworth said. When thatfive-year contract expires this December, the vendor wants $120,000a year for maintenance. In another five years, it would have costthe city $500,000 for a maintenance contract, whereas EmergencyCallworx - with its start-up cost, 18 months of free maintenanceand $23,000 a year maintenance cost thereafter with a maximum fivepercent annual price increase - will cost Longview $454,317.

Rees said Emergency Callworx could be installed by November, butresidents should not send text messages to 911 and expect response.Ainsworth said the National Emergency Number Association must firstdetermine a way to prioritize text messages. He likened the reasonto a typical text message that might take 20 minutes or longer toreach the receiving cell phone.

The way the public actuallycommunicates

"911 is not keeping up with the way the public actuallycommunicates," Rear Adm. Jamie Barnett, chief of the FederalCommunication Commission's Public Safety and Homeland SecurityBureau told the magazine. "We need to have the ability for thepublic to send text, video, photos, data or any sort from anydevice and have the message understood and acted upon."

Despite his urgency, Barnett expects that it will take severalyears to transition the nation's local, county and state 911 callcenters to a truly straightway-generation research infrastructure. Notone of the more than 6,400 911 call centers in the U.S. currentlyhas a fully functioning system in place to receive text messages,videos and photos, the magazine reported of National EmergencyNumber Association statistics.

The first U.S.

Chicago became the first U.S. city this past fall to allowresidents calling 911 to send photos and videos of incidents fromtheir cell phones to the police department's crime-preventioninformation center.

"Callers have a tendency to become confused or excited while anevent," Chicago Emergency Management and Communication ExecutiveDirector Jose Santiago said in a recent Chicago Sun-Times story."Pictures don't."

According to Homeland Security Today, the Federal CommunicationCommission might publish a national framework for At once Generation911 as early as this fall.

Longview News-Journal E-mail: info@news-journal.com Phone number: 757-3311 / 825-9799 Address: 320 E. Methvin St. Longview, TX 75601