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Halloween is not the busiest night of the year, but fright night seems to increase calls for service with complaints varying from very realistic "dead bodies" and bloody decor, to a "visit from the police" that turns out to be a costume. These calls are answered like any other, but jokes, jinks, tricks, and hoaxes may use resources that should be used for emergencies.
People get a kick out of scaring their neighbors and most of the time, police laugh it off and offer congratulations on the best displays.
Have a bootiful, fun, and safe Halloween.
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311 Services
A Key Step in the Global Transition
to e-Government Services
by Jeff Winbourne
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The 311 services offered by many cities and counties in North America served as leading best practices that significantly contributed to creating the worldwide trend to provide ‘e-government’ services. E-government or electronic government services are also known as the key element of initiatives called “Smart City”, digital transformation, and other names.
The transition of 311 from a police non-emergency telephone number to a city services non-emergency service center and the emergence of the Internet, set the stage for the next step of e-Government services applications. E-Government services provided digitally based government services applications through Internet websites, smartphones, and other means have evolved into a worldwide phenomenon. 311 centers began to align their knowledge base with their website, offering fast access to information and newly developed services apps.
Around the year 2000, cities and counties such as Chicago, New York, Dallas, and Miami-Dade County started using the 311 platform to provide government non-emergency services and information. These services became very popular by providing a multi-channel portal, using telephone, email, text, 311 apps, chat, or social media.
Over 300 North American cities and counties now use 311 as a primary source of information. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 311 was the source of information used to protect residents and their families. In general, telephone calls and customer contacts through multiple channels have increased in each jurisdiction over the past 22 years, as residents continue to rely on these services.
Read the full article here: 311 Services – A Key Step in the Global Transition to e-Government Services – Winbourne Consulting, LLC (w-llc.com)
Winbourne Consulting can assist with the initial strategy or plan, cost estimates, system requirements, staffing analysis, and many other features of a government non-emergency digital transformation project. Contact us for more information.
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Farmington Hills Police Department contracted Winbourne to complete a factual analysis of their situational awareness program, including officer safety protocols, firearms training and qualification, threat and risk assessment, training curriculums, and equipment. A comparison to industry model policies, standards, guidelines, and best practices will help provide objective findings and recommendations to assist in determining possible actions for resolving concerns and improving effectiveness.
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Winbourne welcomes three experts to our team of professional consultants
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David Ellington
NG911/911 Subject Matter Expert
Dave brings over twenty-six years of professional 911 technical expertise including the direction of complex projects from concept to fully operational status. Dave is adept at analyzing the performance of existing products, troubleshooting, and ensuring the customer’s mission-critical 911 systems remain operational.
Specialties: NG911, 911, ESInet
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Brian Scearce, PMP
Radio/RF Systems Subject Matter Expert
Brian has demonstrated strengths in RF system technical analysis and design, equipment installation and maintenance practices, R56 requirements for land mobile radio (LMR), microwave backhaul, fiber optic, and network connectivity systems.
Specialties: Land Mobile Radio analysis and design, Motorola 6.9/7.0 Master Site, wireless construction, technical analysis, project management, communication management, creating project budgets, managing financials, conflict resolution, civil/site development
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Clark Kimmerer
Law Enforcement Subject Matter Expert
Clark has over 45 years of experience in public safety having served in multiple roles starting as a patrol officer, progressing to a mid-level manager, and finally assuming senior-level manager positions. After his public safety career, he became a senior-level consultant within public safety lending a broad range of experience to a wide variety of public safety applications in multiple locales across the country.
Projects: Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) lead for the National Body-Worn Camera Program; Commander-Lead Author and Editor, Seattle Police Department Strategic Plans; Major Cities Chiefs Intelligence Commanders Group; Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate; DOJ-Global Justice Fusion Center Standards Work Group; Use of Force - Violence Intervention Policy and Training; AIDS Housing; and Homeland Security-Emergency Preparedness.
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Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) awarded a grant to Winbourne Consulting to assist with expanding our firm’s international business.
The grant is part of VEDP’s International Trade mission to assist Virginia companies selling overseas and their volume of international business. VEDP assistance was created by the Virginia General Assembly in 1995 to encourage, stimulate, and support the development and expansion of the Commonwealth’s economy. Since then, VEDP has helped hundreds of Virginia firms to expand their international presence and export sales.
The grant funding received by Winbourne Consulting consists of two parts. The first is to expand our website specifically addressing international projects. Now our website has a targeted tab for international projects https://www.w-llc.com/about/international-clients/. We launched the updated website in October 2022 and have already received feedback from international clients.
The second part of the grant is to create a video about our firm and our international business to describe what we have done and can do for international clients. We recently held our video recording session with CEO Andrew Reece, Mike Hernon, our Director of Smart City Services, and Jeff Winbourne participating in the shoot. We anticipate the video will be finished with editing and ready for release in December 2022. In addition to showing the short video at industry trade shows, we will post the video on our website.
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KUT 90.5 | By Maya Fawaz
Published October 20, 2022 at 6:51 PM CDT
Updated October 26, 2022 at 2:37 PM CDT
The 911 operator, the one who asks, "What's your emergency?" is the first step in the process of getting help. But Austin residents have found themselves being put on hold in situations where every second counts.
The national standard is for 90% of 911 calls to be answered within 15 seconds. As of Oct. 13, the Austin Police Department’s answer rate for the month was at 66.25%, according to Lt. Kenneth Murphy, director of emergency communications. "Which is not good at all," he said.
The slow response is because half of APD's 911 operator positions are vacant. Casey Callahan spent more than seven years as a police dispatcher before becoming a communications supervisor, overseeing the department. She said Austin 911 used to be the "gold standard" of call centers.
“There were agencies from other states, from other countries, coming to Austin 911,” she said. “Because they wanted to know what we were doing that made us so good at our jobs.”
Callahan said answer rates and morale used to be high several years ago. But issues left ignored cumulated into a citywide crisis.
The department has been asking the City of Austin for a pay raise for years to hire and retain employees as the cost of living has risen substantially in Austin. An entry-level 911 operator is paid $22.85 an hour, which works out to about $45,000 a year — far below the median family income for a one-person household.
With so many vacancies, calls go unanswered for long periods of time and frustrated callers abandon the line. There have been more than 61,000 abandoned 911 calls so far this year — twice the number this time last year and almost 10 times that of 2020.
Read the full article here: Abandoned 911 calls are higher in Austin so far this year than in the past two years combined | KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station
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Friday, October 21, 2022
AT&T announced that first FirstNet connections reached approximately 4 million across more than 23,000 agencies.
In response to questions, AT&T CEO John Stankey said that the carrier has seen a lot of growth in its wireless segment and a lot of that growth has been due to FirstNet.
“Look we’ve been getting our fair share in that segment and a lot of that’s been out of FirstNet and I don’t expect that trend to necessarily abate even in a relatively down economic cycle,” he said.
AT&T also reported third-quarter results that showed strong, sustained momentum in customer additions across its growing 5G wireless and fiber networks.
“We’re investing at record levels to enhance our 5G and fiber connectivity and to deliver the best experience available in the market,” Stankey said. “Our results show our strategy is resonating with customers as we continue to see robust levels of postpaid phone net adds and approach 1 million AT&T fiber net adds for the year.”
Read the full article here: FirstNet Connections Reach 4M, AT&T Announces Financial Results (rrmediagroup.com)
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Hello iCERT members-
Below is an update related to NG911 funding:
As we reported in early August, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Spectrum Innovation Act of 2022 (H.R. 7624), a bipartisan bill which includes NG911 funding language, on July 27th. This has created momentum as the focus shifted to the U.S. Senate, where the discussions regarding extending the FCC’s spectrum auction authority and NG911 funding have been fluid since. As a result, iCERT and our stakeholder partners are working aggressively on the Senate side, urging Senators to pass NG911 funding legislation this year.
Key spectrum provisions included in the Spectrum Innovation Act, i.e., extension of the FCC’s spectrum auction authority and establishment of a spectrum pipeline, remain key issues for the Senate. However, it has become clear that neither Senate Democrats nor Republicans support the legislative framework passed by the House. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is working on her own proposal, and we believe that includes funding for NG911. However, there continues to be disagreement among Senate Democrats and Republicans on key issues such as the length of the FCC’s auction authority, the details of a long-term spectrum pipeline, the manner in which Federal agencies would cooperate on spectrum reallocations, and how proceeds from future spectrum auctions will be used. Obviously, these are a lot of issues to resolve in a short amount of time, but we remain hopeful that the Congress will focus on these issues after the mid-term elections.
In order to help focus increased attention on NG911 funding, iCERT sent the attached letter to Senate and Commerce Committee leadership earlier today. The letter urges the Senate to act this year to pass legislation that would provide critical NG911 funding. In addition to stressing the sense of urgency for Congress to act, our goal is to demonstrate that there continues to be unified support for NG911 funding from industry and the public safety community.
iCERT remains in close communication with stakeholder groups from across the telecommunications space and will continue to coordinate with them on efforts to pass NG911 funding. If you or your company can engage and lend resources to our effort, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or Don Brittingham.
Thanks.
George Kelemen
Executive Director
[email protected]
202-805-0096
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December 7, 2022
Washington DC
Make plans to attend the iCERT 2022 Fall Member Meeting in Washington, DC on December 7th.
Registration is now open to ALL iCERT members.
LOCATION
Capitol Hill Club
300 First Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
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March 27 - 30, 2023
Las Vega, NV
IWCE connects the people and technologies charged with ensuring that the most critical communications – supporting governments, utilities, transportation, enterprise, public safety, healthcare and critical-infrastructure sectors – always work, even under the most difficult circumstances.
Register here
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Winbourne Consulting provides a wide range of public safety services to our clients. Some of our services offered are (click on any of these to go to our website):
Areas of focus include:
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International Services
International Clients
Some areas of focus include:
- Emergency Communications
- Emergency Operations Centers
- Emergency Services
- NG9-1-1
- Wireless Communications
- LTE 5G Network
- 911 Implementation
- 112 Implementation
- Transportation Management
- Smart Cities
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