NICE News Special Edition - Volume 2, Issue 3

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MARION COUNTY: TACKLING WIRELESS 9-1-1 AND MORE WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM NICE

For all of their differences, large and small comm centers have at least one thing in common: the thorny issue of wireless 9-1-1. One small comm center in Kansas is tackling the issue head on, thanks to investments it has made in enhanced technology for mapping and capturing wireless calls.

Back in 2004, Kansas enacted legislation to mandate the statewide implementation of enhanced wireless 9-1-1 by the year 2010. Under that same law, eligible counties and cities could apply for grants to fund their wireless 9-1-1 initiatives. Marion County Emergency Communications requested and received funds to equip its center for wireless 9-1-1.

Michele Abbott-Becker, who is director of emergency communications for Marion County and 1^st vice president for the Kansas chapter of APCO, saw the wireless 9-1-1 project as a critical undertaking. Each month, her center handles over 4,000 9-1-1 and non-emergency calls and provides dispatching services for more than three dozen police, fire, EMS, and first response units, as well as the Corp of Engineers, Wildlife and Parks, and city water and electrical departments. A staggering number of those calls - close to 70% - come in on cellular phones. "Our motivation was to be totally Phase II compliant, so we upgraded our systems and maintained our old equipment for backup," said Abbott-Becker.

By mid-2005, the County had overhauled its entire 9-1-1 center and was well on the road to achieving Phase II compliance with the addition of a new 9-1-1 system that included GIS mapping software and data to pinpoint and track the GPS location (longitude and latitude) of wireless 9-1-1 callers. Armed with this information, Marion County dispatchers not only knew the location of wireless 9-1-1 callers; they could track their every move as well. "Our new 9-1-1 system does a re-bid every 20 seconds," explained Abbott-Becker. "So if a person dials 9-1-1 from a cell phone in a car, and the car is moving, we receive updated information on the caller's location every 20 seconds."

The County also earmarked some of the funds it received to replace its old recording system, which had neither the capacity nor the features the County needed for its newly upgraded 9-1-1 center. Marion County Emergency Communications opted for a NiceCall Focus^TM III system from Voice Products, Inc., an authorized NICE dealer and partner located in Wichita, Kansas. Marion County had long-standing dealings with Voice Products, Inc. dating back more than a decade.

"We really have an excellent relationship with our dealer," said Abbott-Becker. "We had purchased four recording systems from them previously, and we couldn't ask for anything that they wouldn't do." She cited an example where the County needed an enhanced tape of a bank robbery incident. Her Voice Products' representative delivered it within 24 hours. "When you have a good working relationship like that, you don't rock the boat," she said.

Other key factors played into Abbott-Becker's decision to upgrade to NiceCall Focus III as well. "Our previous system didn't have the capacity we needed," she said. The new NiceCall Focus III will, and, she adds, "The fact that the NiceCall Focus III could capture the caller's phone number and location information was a big plus too."

Just as Marion County's 9-1-1 system pinpoints and tracks wireless callers' every move, the new NICE system records that GPS information as well. This capability will ensure that the County has a complete record of incidents involving wireless calls, including the caller's movements (based on the re-bid ANI/ALI data) and what was said (based on the cellular voice recordings).

Capturing the re-bid location data is critically important because a mobile caller's location (transmitted as longitude, latitude and altitude) can change throughout the duration of the call. By pulling up the voice recordings and seeing the locations from which the calls were placed, Marion County will be able to retrace an exact sequence of events and locations. "Our current system does not capture the wireless data but my NiceCall Focus III will," said Abbott-Becker. "We'll be able to use this information to fully corroborate what happened, when it happened, and where it happened."

The County also employs traditional E-9-1-1 (enhanced 9-1-1) to receive ANI/ALI data (phone numbers, addresses) for landline 9-1-1 calls. That information will be captured by the NiceCall Focus III too. Abbott-Becker said that this could prove especially useful in investigating specific types of cases - for example, domestic violence incidents. "In the past if a County attorney wanted to hear every recording of every 9-1-1 call that came from a certain residence, it would be hard for me to pinpoint that," she explained. "Now I'll be able to just type in the phone number or address and pull all the calls up right away."

Whether researching an incident involving wireless or wireline calls, Abbott-Becker is confident that one other feature of her new NICE solution - Scenario Replay^TM - will come in handy too. "Before, if I wanted to reconstruct an incident, I'd have to go in and rebuild the incident call by call by call and save each call under a different name. I didn't have any way to easily depict the sequence and transition of calls," said Abbott-Becker. Using Scenario Replay, she'll be able to recreate a complete incident simply by highlighting the recordings she wants and then saving them as a single .wav file that can be stored, emailed, and replayed.

ABOUT NICECALL FOCUS III
NiceCall Focus III is a new recording solution from NICE designed specifically for small and mid-sized public safety, call center and dispatch operations. NiceCall Focus III is a cost-effective, yet highly resilient and feature-rich recording solution that is easy to use and maintain. It offers unmatched online capacity coupled with NICE's Scenario Replay software, a powerful search and replay tool that enables rapid, effortless reconstruction of incidents from recorded interactions. An open-architecture design ensures that NiceCall Focus III fits seamlessly into today's environments and is a long-lived investment for the future. All of NiceCall Focus III's many features and benefits are available in a single, space-saving unit, eliminating the need for servers and other costly hardware. Read more about NiceCall Focus III at www.nice.com/products/multimedia/nicecall_focus_iii.php.

Visit Voice Products Inc. on the web at www.voiceproductsinc.com/.

Visit the Marion County Emergency Communications Center online at
www.marioncoks.net/MV2Base.asp?VarCN=100.