CASE STUDY
TRANSITIONING TO NG911 IN MASSACHUSETTS Massachusetts offers a look at the future with its roll out of NG911
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lin, half the community lost power, but NG911 stayed up. “We still could access the 911 system,” says McCarra- her. “There was no need to worry about downed phone lines.” The backbone of the Massachusetts system involved a major undertaking: geographic mapping of the entire state to more exactly identify a caller’s location. The feature can potentially shave critical minutes off response time. “If Mrs. Smith from New York saw a house fire and didn’t know she was in Whitman, it took longer to figure out where she was,” explains Whitman Fire Chief Timothy Grenno. When the wireless carrier provides a precise location, he says “NG911’s state-of- the-art mapping ties into dispatch and pinpoints where she is.”
The public couldn’t see the immediate benefits, but they were significant. The network is more stable and pro- vides the capability to deliver a more precise location for callers, speed- ing emergency response. It backs up swamped PSAPs by rerouting calls, al- lows dispatchers to receive mobile calls directly and, by the end of the year, will allow for receiving texts from citizens. “It’s frustrating to see only about 50 percent of states moving forward,” says McCarraher, who tracks NG911 progress nationally in his role as chair of the International Associa- tion of Fire Chiefs’ communications committee. He points to two major obstacles: funding and whether or not it’s a priority.
n a state with harsh winter weather, the clock was ticking down on up- grading Massachusetts’ 911 system. Not just because its old, copper wire in- frastructure was designed for landlines and couldn’t directly receive mobile calls, texts or images or take advan- tage of digital innovations. The wiring was sensitive to moisture, making 911 unreliable during annual blizzards and flooding. And support for legacy, wire- based systems was diminishing. “If we lose the copper infrastructure, how do callers get through? That’s what NG911 does,” says Franklin Fire Chief Gary McCarraher. In late 2017, Massachusetts com- pleted its statewide rollout of NG911 to almost 240 call centers or public- safety answering points (PSAPs)—the equipment, database and fiber network.
When a 23-inch snowstorm hit Frank-
Massachusetts' NG911 provides enhanced capabilities for emergency response.
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