Vintage counts for baseball cards and cars, not 9-1-1 tech
I have1967 Mustang. It's a sweet ride–I like to share photos of the restoration that has gone twice as long as planned and many times over budget.
Classic cars are cool. But making 53-year-old technology stretch the bounds of time and innovation is not without challenges. Original parts are no longer manufactured, and solutions to accommodate today's environment are bolted on and patched in place. It's clunky and inelegant, but it works. Until it doesn't. The pony car was built in a mechanical environment, not a digital one. So while it may have served my grandfather well, it is not the ride that pulls out of the garage when reliability matters.
It goes without saying that 9-1-1 technology is far more important than your ride. But just like my pony car, old technology is failure-prone and not without challenges. The old telcos don't mind if we keep it; 50+-year-old technology is 100% profit for them. The public doesn't understand why we need better 9-1-1, and the government isn't quite providing the funding environment to help us get there any faster.
But when you work in public safety, you know in your heart that to serve your community, you need better and more reliable tools.
That is how the company I work with, NGA 911, entered the scene in 2015. The NGA 911 beginnings sprang from a passion for technology and public safety. CEO and founder Don Ferguson started in 9-1-1 with an application designed to connect children and parents to public safety resources when they were needed most.
Don's work required an appearance before the FCC, who asked, "Why not use this technology for Next Generation 9-1-1?" This simple question pushed development to a solution that would truly save lives by connecting people via reliable NG9-1-1 services.
As the scope grew, Don's understanding of the impact better technology could have on public safety became clear, as did the need to switch over to modern, interoperable public safety technology. Don became a member of President Barack Obama's Technology and Innovation brainstorming team to plan the nationwide move away from antiquated technology and things took off from there.
NGA 911 was built in the care of a team with 400+ combined years in 9-1-1.
Is NGA 911 the new kid on the block? Sure. However, we think that is a good thing! We don't have to break free of legacy thinking to meet ever-evolving technology demands.
As the first installations of Next Generation 9-1-1 started in 2013, our team members experienced those new systems in PSAPs, as Public Safety consultants, First Responders, and network engineers. Today, we are thrilled to be maintained and challenged to strive for the best by some of the greatest minds to come from public safety and tech.
Next Generation 9-1-1 is our jam. It's our singular focus, and we are pretty proud of that.
We are on a mission to make communication easier on both sides of the 9-1-1 call. We do that with secure, cloud-based NG9-1-1 technology. With NGA 911, you get better location, the highest possible fault tolerance and stability, Real-Time Text, and enhanced data to allow for more effective and faster emergency response.
With NGA 911, public safety professionals now have access to a competitive environment of providers to secure the right technology and partnership for the road ahead. Cruise on over to our website to learn more >> NGA 911