The Cannon County 911 District Board of Directors met on October the 25th for their regular scheduled meeting. Presented to the 911 board was an important proposal by 911 Director Roy Sullivan to purchase equipment to enable the Cannon County 911 Center to connect to a state wide, IP based network, the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board has named the project, Next Generation 911, referred to as the NG911 project. The statewide NG911 network is currently being installed and tested. This state wide network will be a digital based platform enabling the transfer of information that was never possible before and will eventually be over fiber optic instead of the traditional and expensive copper trunk lines. NG911 will enable the transfer of entire call information including the caller’s location information. Currently a wireless callers location is calculated by X and Y coordinates and/or GPS but if the call hits a neighboring counties cell tower, we do not receive the callers location and that has to be relayed verbally, taking up precious time. With NG911, the state will maintain a statewide GIS database that will give us access to any map information anywhere in the state of Tennessee and more importantly, our neighboring counties GIS map information. Currently in testing by AT&T is the ability to text 911 and if implemented, Tennessee we will be one of the very few with that capability in the entire US.Funding for the NG911 project is being funded by the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board thru wireless 911 surcharges to ensure that 911 in Tennessee continues to move forward. Wireless 911 surcharges are controlled by the state board. Landline rates are controlled by the county but unfortunately the rate cannot be raised anymore and is in a steady decline every year due to more people changing from landline phones to cell phones. It is
The 911 Board of Directors voted unanimously to purchase the NG911 equipment to replace the old analog equipment we currently use. The project is costly and will be in excess of $250,000.00, but will update just about every piece of equipment in our facility and will incorporate a new computer aided dispatch system (CAD) that Cannon County has never had before. When we moved into our new center in April 2008, some new equipment was purchased, but the main 911systems and mapping were moved. These systems are now outdated and ready for replacement.
The project is being rolled out in several phases. The first phase has already been completed with the installation of computer modem interfaces to connect to the NG911 statewide network. The next phase is the completion of converting all of our GIS map data to a statewide compatible format called TIPS. That should be completed by the end of this calendar year. Our goal is to have the mapping phase completed and running by February 1, 2013. There will be no downtime during the cutover phase of the project.
