Dialing 911 in the Canadian Park System, from the North Pole to the Prince Edward Island to the Western shores of British Columbia, drops you right into the lap of a cozy 2 seat PSAP nestled in the Jasper National Park in Alberta Canada. It's here where a few dedicated and talented call takers and dispatchers answer calls from Satellite Phones to cell phones, and everything in between. This week we feature these wonderful folks and talk about their specific challenges.

Alberta has a new Wireless Tax Levy, and in order for PSAPs to get a piece of that fund, they need to talk to Dwayne Lemiski from the Alberta Emergency Management Agency. Fortunately Dwayne is all about making Government agile and easy to deal with. His single page form for grant money is quick and easy, saving more money for agencies instead of spending it on Red Tape! Listen how Alberta Canada is moving forward with NG911 services for their PSAPs and making good use of constituent tax dollars.

PSAPs in Alberta Canada are about to find out who their new Santa Clause is. Andrew Renfree, Manager of the 911 program at the Alberta Emergency Management Agency talks about how money, that will be collected from cellular accounts, will be used for Frivolous Vexatious call prevention, legal protection for 911 staff and new call taking standards that will be implemented across the Providence.

Listen how Alberta will use lessons learned by others in the industry to move forward with a successful plan, starting with the input and opinions from the PSAPs.

A few weeks back, the AB 911 bill was put into "SUSPENSE", and today a Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Bill Analysis was published on the California PUC website explaining the reasoning for this change. Cue the suspenseful music!

Just what does this mean for California MLTS Operators and Administrators?

Nobody likes to wait for anything, especially for a 911 call taker during an emergency, and 911 Center Public Safety Answer Points (PSAP) Average Call Answer Times have been under scrutiny lately in several states. But before you throw the baby out with the bath water and criticize 911 Call Taker efficiency, you need to validate the data.

This week I sat down with @BillSchrier who works for the Office of the CIO for the State of Washington. We talk about Next Generation services for citizens, and how Governments can and will evolve to expanding this services to NG911. Dont miss this great episode with this industry leader.

As Public Safety becomes more tech savvy, their requirements for data networks and connectivity are increasing at record paces. With law enforcement stepping into this new realm of technology, it's no wonder how many are confused with the terms, and capabilities, and what exactly is a best practice, and what is all fluff. Here is a Top 10 list that you'll need to take a look at, to put you on the right track as you begin the build out of your Next Generation Emergency Services Network.

CalNENA President issues a letter to FCC Acting Chairwoman Clyburn citing several alarming factors that came to light after a study of real-time data over a two-year period by public safety analytics company Public Safety Network. The data focused on the amount of cellular phone calls that had received Phase II data by the completion of the call.

CONCLUSION: Accurate Location data is missing on 45% or more of the calls.

Would you want open source software that has been around for more than a decade in the hacker community running the core network of your emergency communications system? Would you want that system to drop to it’s knees with as little as 100 simultaneous calls pumped into it?

Believe it or not, there are some out there that think this is completely acceptable, and tout this as the core of their thought leadership in providing best in class IP based Next Generation emergency call taking solutions.

At Avaya, we understand the definition of resiliency, reliability and what it takes to build a robust IP enabled infrastructure, as WE have been doing for decades. Just for fun, Google "How to hack Asterisk", I came up with 858,000 different ways.

When establishing liability and who is at fault, a tactic that attorneys will use is "prior knowledge". This is the exactly what is happening in Texas. Apparently the parents of a deceased teenager are suing the city of Dallas, Apple, and AT&T claiming that they were negligible for not using technology that could have accurately located their son when 911 was called on an overdose. Another proof point that the expectations of the general public are very different from the facts and reality. Who would you put the blame on?