The Jeff Pulver Blog: And this just in from the US Department of Transportation on Next Generation 911:

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December 15, 2006

And this just in from the US Department of Transportation on Next Generation 911:

The U.S. Department of Transportation seems to be looking ahead and figuring out ways to deploy IP technology to IMPROVE emergency response and preparedness, rather than compelling the Internet communications innovators to be backward compatible with legacy phone networks:

DOT has announced the selection of Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. (BAH) to support the USDOT Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) initiative.

The $4.4 million dollar contract requires the team spearheaded by BAH to develop and validate requirements for the NG9-1-1 system, define a system architecture, and develop a transition plan that considers responsibilities, costs, schedule, and benefits for deploying IP-based emergency services across America. The system will be evaluated to determine how it supports emergency call initiation, routing, and processing that will ultimately fulfill public safety emergency response information needs. The contract's period of performance is expected to be two years.

The growing market penetration of both cellular and Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) telephony have underscored the limitation of the current 9-1-1 infrastructure.

Anticipated benefits to be derived from a next-generation system include:

* Quicker and more accurate information delivery to responders;
* Better and more useful forms of information: real-timetext, images, video, and other data;
* More flexible, secure, and robust Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) operations; and
* Lower public capital and operating costs for emergency communication services.

NG9-1-1 is one of USDOT's major ITS research initiatives. For detailed information on NG9-1-1 and the other major ITS initiatives, go to the USDOT's ITS Website at www.its.dot.gov
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Tags: E911, USDOT, Jeff Pulver