By Don Jacobs
Knoxville News-Sentinel
MORGAN COUNTY, Tenn. — Imagine clicking a picture of a fleeing bank robber with your cell phone and sending that image straight to the local E-911 center, which in turn immediately shoots the picture to computers in police cruisers in the area of the heist.
Or how about calling E-911 and having an emergency dispatcher send you a video on your cell phone on how to properly perform CPR on your friend who stopped breathing?
Those scenarios are no longer a flight of future fantasy. The Tennessee Emergency Communications Board is aiming for the technology to make local emergency centers across the state ready for Next Generation 911 beginning in early 2011.
To help make NG-911 a reality, the state communications board last month announced it will spread $25 million across the state to fund technology upgrades at local E-911 centers. The TECB collects millions of dollars annually in 911 cell phone tariffs and redistributes those funds to local E-911 centers through grants and population formulas.
“We need NG-911 to handle the emerging technologies like Internet phone service and the many capabilities of today’s cell phones,” said Lynn Questell, executive director of the TECB.
NG-911 involves developing a digital wireless emergency network that uses Internet protocol and is supported by fiber optics statewide. Not only does the technology provide quicker and more efficient emergency responses, it also enables interactivity between emergency service providers and those needing the services.
NG-911 will offer automatic crash notification to E-911 centers on cars equipped with the technology and will allow texting between the public and E-911 centers. It also will allow various emergency agencies to talk to one another and even allows E-911 centers across the state to coordinate efforts. The technology can let different states communicate in emergencies.
In February the TECB said it would pay each of the 100 emergency communications districts statewide $120,000, plus an additional amount based on the population served by the E-911 center, to help pay the costs to upgrade to the digital NG-911 system.
For Joe Wilson, executive director of the Bradley County E-911 Center, that means his district will get $319,000 for the NG-911 upgrade. Wilson also is president of the Tennessee Emergency Number Association.
“I think that will get us what we need, but the costs right now are a moving target,” Wilson said. His E-911 center employs 29 dispatchers and call-takers and serves about nine emergency agencies. His annual budget is more than $2 million.
Wilson said the TECB is providing the NG-911 funds through a reimbursement program. His center buys the needed upgrades and then gets reimbursed by the TECB up to $319,000.
“Excited is the right word,” Wilson said of the NG-911 concept, although he conceded the 2011 target date “is ambitious.”
“People could send us pictures of a bank robber,” he said. “And wouldn’t it be nice to show someone how to do CPR rather than telling them?
“With all those cell phones out there, that’s a bunch of eyes on the street for us.”
In Morgan County, 911 Director Larry Potter said NG-911 “will open a whole new world for us.”
“It’s going to be a great asset for us,” Potter said. “I’m real excited about its capabilities.”
Potter said he hopes costs for his district are minimal because Morgan County last September opened its new $1.3 million E-911 Center that serves about 15 emergency agencies.
Wilson noted Tennessee was the third state in the nation to have total location identifi cation coverage wherever a wireless connection existed. Now he sees the TECB taking the lead on a statewide NG-911 system.
“We’re not going to take a back seat to anyone,” Wilson said.
Don Jacobs may be reached at 865-342-6345.
Copyright 2010 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.