A new building means new, updated equipment for Brantley County’s E911 service helping the move into this century.
The new, updated and upgraded Net Gen 911 (NG911) system from INdigital includes the Motorola Vesta System, a five-year annual systems agreement and the Mevo Starlink Component was $293,612.26.
“Was” was before the Thursday, May 15 meeting when a final quote surpassed the $293,612.26 bid.
“We are going to revist this,” said County Manager Joey Cason.
Chris Clifton with MLBA explained to the commission during the Tuesday work session what is needed for the upgrade from an aged AT&T system he called “deprecated “ into the new technology world.
“The AT&T equipment in the 911 facility is slowly failing,” said Clifton. “It’s very old and there is almost nobody who works on it. The manufacturer who used to produce the equipment no longer produces it. They’ve moved on into fiber connectivity. Both of the call work servers are out of warranty at this point.”
Commissioners were told E911 has already had a server fail this year. Several hours went by where calls were unable to be handled. Fortunately, it came back up.
“The longer we wait for approval the longer it will take to get Brittany (Rowe, director) into the new annex,” said Clifton. The push for this is this project would take nine to 12 months to complete. The Annex is being built and hopefully will be fully completed by the end of this year.”
Clifton informed commissioners of the steps in the process of the transition.
“The running of the phone lines, getting the wireless connectivity and making sure that cell phone calls are routed to the correct PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) takes time,” Clifton said. “They have to make sure all the land lines get moved over in a graceful manner and the service starts ringing through. It’s kind of a staged project that kind of you have to tiptoe into to make sure you don’t miss any public safety calls and that there’s no drop connectivity there for them.” PSAP is the Operations Center which handles emergency calls and coordinates emergency responses, often for law enforcement, fire departments, or emergency medical services.
“They’ll also be providing all of the internet connectivity to the system, along with all the equipment, including firewalls, routers, switches, servers and PCs to operate that system for 911,” said Clifton. “They’ve also proposed their call management services where they route the calls.”
NG911 is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based system enhancing the 911 emergency system. It aims to improve communication between citizens and first responders by utilizing digital information flow, enhancing call routing, and improving overall system resilience.
NG911 represents a significant step forward in the evolution of emergency communications, aiming to improve the speed, accuracy, and overall effectiveness of the 911 system. Some key features are:
• enabling the transmission of voice, video, and text messages, expanding beyond traditional voice calls.
• provides more accurate caller location information to 911 dispatchers, facilitating quicker and more efficient response times.
• is designed to be more resilient in the face of disasters and call overloads, ensuring that 911 services remain accessible during emergencies.
• facilitates seamless communication and data sharing between different 911 centers and first responder agencies, improving coordination during emergencies.
• supports features like real-time text messaging for those unable to speak, language translation, and integration with AI-powered tools.
• allows for the seamless flow of digital information from the public, through the 911 network, and to first responders, enabling faster and more informed responses.
“This new technology allows someone to text a 911 operator if they come up on a fire or wreck,” Clifton said. “They can send video and the system will give the exact geo location from a cell phone or mobile device, iPad, Apple, watch or whatever. It queries the mobile device.
“This gives information to the 911 operators so they can give exact coordinates where this is happening, who’s calling, and it allows them to be able to direct fire department, ambulances, etc., to that location in a faster manner and are able to help people quicker. You cannot do any of that with the current system.”
