A Bunch of Communications Lawyers Walked Into a 911 Center …
It’s not meant to have a punch line. It’s what occurred this morning at the District of Columbia Office of Unified Communications, which handles close to 4 million emergency and non-emergency city calls for service yearly.
Simply put, it’s quite an operation. The several story building has at its core a room with operators that includes all sorts of high-tech telecommunications gear. Members of the Federal Communications Bar Association, from regulators, wireless carriers and elsewhere, took a tour. More photos here.
Without becoming a fanboy of the operation, which to be fair has had its high-profile stumbles over the years, the tour really impressed upon the group overall and me personally the gravity and professionalism of the execution of its mission.
The stone edifice of the building encapsulates this: “We can, we will safeguard this great city and our people.”
Officials at the OUC told the group that it’s farther along than many other centers in moving towards what’s generally called next-generation 911. While there are a lot of aspects of such upgrades, as well as costs that some say could be several billion dollars nationwide, at base it boils down to being able to accept communications from the public using all the methods they use and with redundancy in case of failure or disaster.
This means that for several years, the center has been able to get texts meant for 911. Although apparently these are few.
And because some cellular services do not automatically provide 911 with the most specific information about where someone is physically located, the center, like many others, is working with a company. Called RapidSOS, it’s meant to bridge this gap. Officials told us it’s helping. However, if you use a VoIP phone not linked to a phone number such a Skype to call 911 in some situations, you might be out of luck. That’s at least according to a staffer.
While obviously the center and others have extensive plans for outages, that does not stop the occasional glitch. I’ve experienced them before, and sometimes they are caused by wireless carriers or wireline telephone companies or the companies that transport their communications.
OUC Director Karima Holmes told the group of a couple dozen that there are close communications between its employees and those of the major carriers. She also said the center and others in the region can coordinate. There’s a relationship between OUC and the Federal Communications Commission, which also sent officials on the tour.
The building has physical duplication, too. There is an extra, back-up center in the city near Howard University. There appear to be more desks for operators than are needed during regular periods. And the technology, provided by outside vendors, allows supervisors and others to monitor whether calls are being answered immediately and other information.
The array of large screens throughout the building showing just those statistics certainly appears to testify to that. We were also told that those who take 911 calls from the public and their colleagues who communicate that information to police, fire in other personnel can easily communicate to whole groups like every police district or to certain first responders.
For instance, during our daytime tour, we observed approximately one staffer assigned to each police district. They communicate with the officers doing their jobs. We observed them and also call takers getting incoming calls from the public. All were professional and calm and answered all of our questions, even at times while performing their regular duties.
Also in the building are 311 operators. They get a little more than half of the incoming calls going to the center overall. They represent some city agencies by essentially running their incoming call operations and also take complaints on things like potholes and traffic lights.
A new twist, or more accurately a return to what used to occur, is that now when you call 311 and need to reach the police but it’s not an emergency, your call will be connected to the same people who deal with emergency police calls. The difference is that by dialing 311 instead of 911, you won’t contribute to overwhelming the 911 system.
