Volunteers Sought for Non-Conventional Means of Communicating with E9-1-1 Working Group

NENA is seeking volunteers to participate in a new working group that is establishing guidelines, best practices, and requirements for non-conventional means of communicating with E9-1-1 systems. There is an increasing incidence of E9-1-1 calls that introduce unexpected operational and technical issues. These methods are used when providers of modern technologies want to send data or communicate with public safety, but because E9-1-1 cannot initiate multimedia sessions or receive data over IP in a modern way, providers turn to clever implementations that use legacy E9-1-1 interfaces in unexpected ways. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• A body-worn device places a 9-1-1 call when it detects that an individual may have been injured
• Supplemental non-location information is embedded into ALI
• A mobile device places a silent call that includes a pre-recorded message
• A device sends a non-human initiated or one-way text to report an emergency

The working group will identify existing and transitional E9-1-1 environments and capabilities used to handle non-conventional communication modes and provide examples of non-conventional data transmissions to public safety.

We are seeking volunteers and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) with knowledge of PSAP operations, NG9-1-1 technologies, and OTT solutions, applications providers, and related areas. Experience in developing use cases/user stories and requirements will be very helpful. The working group will be meeting Wednesdays 12:30 - 2:00 ET beginning April 28, 2021.

To contribute to this effort please register here.

National Emergency Number Association