Archive for June, 2009

Arlington County Emergency Communications Center recently implemented the APCO Institute Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) Program. Arlington County Emergency Communications Center provides 9-1-1 dispatching for Arlington County, Falls Church City, the Pentagon, Fort Myer Army Base and Arlington National Cemetery with a staff of 55 and an annual call volume of over 500,000.

The APCO Institute EMD Program, based on EMD Guidecards and software, is a systematic way to manage emergency medical service (EMS) resources in an organized and effective manner and to provide medical assistance to callers, when needed, until medically trained field response units arrive at the scene.

Arlington County Emergency Communications Center credits two saved lives to the program since its implementation, including one infant.

“The APCO Institute welcomes Arlington County Emergency Communications Center as an EMD User Agency and looks forward to working with their staff to provide EMD services to their area,” APCO Institute Director Julie Troutman said.

MILTON, Ontario and REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – June 4, 2009 – Milton Hydro, a local utility distribution company located in southern Ontario, along with Trilliant Incorporated, the leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced the expansion of Milton’s existing Smart Grid initiative. Milton, who first delivered Time-of-Use (TOU) billing to its customers in 2005, now provides TOU billing for over 21,000 consumers. The solution is already in full production at Milton, including Trilliant hosted data services and software, and provides for two-way communication capabilities between Milton Hydro and their customers. Furthermore, Milton has successfully completed production testing and enrollment with the province’s centralized Meter Data Management and Repository (MDM/R) system. This system is operated by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) in its capacity as the Smart Metering Entity.

Milton, part of the Greater Toronto Area, is Canada’s fastest-growing community, and is expected to reach nearly 150,000 residents by 2021. One of the earliest supporters of the government’s smart metering program, Milton Hydro has been using Trilliant technology since 2005 and is currently billing most of their customers on TOU rates. All new residential customers, approximately 2,000 per year, are immediately placed on TOU billing. Trilliant’s SecureMesh™ technology and associated data center applications include the necessary interfaces for integration with the MDM/R. Milton is one of the first utilities in Ontario to support TOU rates through the MDM/R.

The Government of Ontario, Canada, through the “Energy Conservation Responsibility Act in 2006,” has mandated the installation of smart meters in all Ontario businesses and households by 2010. Milton Hydro has completed the installation of smart meters for all their residential customers and all customers shall be on TOU billing by this fall, making Milton the first utility to fully implement Smart Metering and TOU billing.

“Trilliant has been a strategic partner of ours for many years and continues to play a central role in helping us realize our plans to be a leader in the adoption of information technology that benefits our customers,” said Frank Lasowski, President and CEO at Milton Hydro. “In addition, we’ve deployed SkyPilot equipment as part of our smart metering program and Trilliant’s recent acquisition of SkyPilot highlights their commitment to complete Smart Grid solutions. Very simply, Trilliant offers a working solution that meets or exceeds the Advanced Metering Infrastructure specifications and helps Milton Hydro bring new levels of value to our customers.”

“With a vision for the Smart Grid and the widespread implementation of TOU billing, Milton Hydro is creating a blueprint for other utilities to follow,” said Andy White, CEO of Trilliant. “Milton Hydro not only provided its customers with a successful, cost-effective rollout of smart meters and the assurance of continued wise energy management services, but also with a model that provides for easy adoption of new capabilities in the future.”

NICE Systems today announced enhancements to its NICE Inform™ multimedia incident information management solution for public safety and security command and control centers. NICE Systems will demonstrate NICE Inform and other NICE solutions in booth #108 at the upcoming NENA 2009 Conference and Tradeshow, June 6 through June 11, 2009, in Fort Worth, Texas.

The world’s first full-spectrum multimedia incident information management solution, NICE Inform was designed to help public safety and security command and control centers capture, consolidate and manage multimedia incident information, including audio, video, text and data. NICE Inform enables captured 911, emergency and other voice communications to be seamlessly synched with surveillance video and other incident information for more effective and thorough investigations. The newest release of NICE Inform (Version 3) includes the following feature enhancements:

Inform media player:

Attorneys, investigators, and other departments rely on many sources of information and evidence, including voice recordings and video. However, until now, it was difficult for the parties receiving the data to put the pieces together. Voice and video would be packaged, sent and reviewed separately. The new NICE Inform media player makes it possible for comprehensive incident reconstructions, including time-synched voice and video, and a myriad of supporting documentation, to be compiled and shared in an offline, secure and efficient way. Complete reconstructions and other incident-related information can be compiled and disseminated on CDs, DVDs, or by e-mail, and subsequently reviewed or replayed. Recipients get complete and precise reproductions for a 360° view of incidents, with visibility into what people saw, heard and did. Encryption and authentication ensures incident reproductions are secure and tamper proof.

Inform Verify:

NICE Inform already provides sophisticated tools for post incident analysis. Now, with the addition of Inform Verify to the NICE Inform suite, agencies can improve their real-time handling of incidents too. Call-takers benefit from Inform Verify’s instant call replay capabilities – features once only available through separate, standalone systems at additional cost. With Inform Verify, call-takers get instant access to recordings right through their consoles, in order to make informed, split-second decisions and save lives.

NICE Inform Version 3 is already installed at three NICE customer sites: the British Columbia Ambulance Service (BCAS), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (N.C. A&T) State University, and the City of Westminster (Colorado) Police/Fire Department.

The City of Westminster first implemented NICE Inform in February 2008 and upgraded to NICE Inform Version 3 in April 2009. According to Karin Marquez , the City of Westminster’s Communications Supervisor, the City is already reaping cost savings, space savings, efficiencies and other benefits – using the system to fulfill incident reproduction requests for investigators and internal affairs. Previously, Marquez had to send out audio recordings and paper-based copies of CAD notes containing incident information, which often exceeded 20 pages. Now the Department uses NICE Inform to compile and distribute requested incident information electronically via CDs, providing more thorough documentation to investigators, while saving time, costs and filing space.

“I love the product,” Marquez said. “It has streamlined our processes and given our users more information than ever before. It’s great to be able to add CAD reports along with the audio, and ship the CD to detectives, so they can have everything in one neat package,” she added. “Not having to print the CAD notes has saved us a lot of paper and ink. It’s helped our agency become more environmentally conscious.”

“When we first launched NICE Inform, just over two years ago, it was our mission to help organizations across all of our security sectors improve their ability to capture, manage and make sense of critical multimedia information,” said Chris Wooten, President of NICE’s Security Division in the Americas. “We are very proud of the successful deployments of NICE Inform in all of our key security markets.”

NICE Inform is currently installed at hundreds of NICE customer sites, including some of the world’s largest public safety departments like the NYPD and the FDNY (the New York City Police and Fire Departments), and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). It is part of NICE’s comprehensive security suite that encompasses video analytics for proactive detection, to solutions that aid in the successful resolution and investigation of incidents and events. For more information on NICE Inform visit www.nice.com/solutions/public/nice_inform.php or email Welcome@nice.com.

SkyCross, a global antenna solutions company, is providing award-winning iMAT® antennas to TECOM Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, for its latest WiMAX USB dongles. VMAX, a WiMAX operator and 2.5 GHz license holder in Taiwan, will offer the USB dongles for its trial network in June and its full commercial launch in Q3 of this year.

The WiMAX standard requires MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) operation, which typically calls for multiple antennas. However, today’s small mobile devices do not provide the additional space necessary for these antennas to operate without interfering with each other. iMAT solves this challenge by enabling a single antenna element to behave like multiple antennas. Recent field tests confirmed that the antenna is a key component to the overall system throughput, and the iMAT antenna yielded the highest throughput on average compared to PCB antennas, ceramic chip antennas, and others.

“We are very pleased that Tecom selected our antennas for the WiMAX network deployment in Taiwan,” said David Williams, Director at SkyCross. “This win underscores the benefits that iMAT delivers not only to the device, but also to the network. A greater number of efficient, iMAT-equipped devices on a network can improve the capacity and bandwidth of the entire system, enabling operators to optimize network performance without additional infrastructure investments.”

“First impressions are critical in new network deployments, and iMAT antennas proved to be the best solution for our sleek USB dongles,” said Jonah Kao, Senior Director at Tecom. “We selected SkyCross because iMAT uniquely optimizes size, performance, and price.”

These products will be on display June 2-6 in the SkyCross hospitality suite at the Grand Hyatt Taipei and at Tecom booth 731 at the WiMAX Taipei show co-located with Computex. Contact Al Petrick at al.petrick@skycross.com or Luis Tso at chtso@tecom.com.tw to arrange a meeting at the exhibition.

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite network solutions and services, today announced the availability of a new HughesNet Emergency Business Internet service plan in anticipation of the 2009 hurricane season. The offering is designed to provide robust, expedited broadband Internet connectivity for business and government organizations when a disaster strikes.

The new HughesNet Emergency Business Internet service plan features download speeds of up to 5 Mbps and uploads speeds of up to 1 Mbps, made possible by utilizing Hughes advanced SPACEWAY® 3 Ka-band satellite system, the world’s first with on-board switching and routing. The service plan includes comprehensive 24/7 technical support; next-business day field maintenance; and provides organizations with the flexibility they need in an emergency, requiring only a two-month service commitment that may be extended on a month-to-month basis, depending on need.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted an active 2009 Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 – Nov. 30) with an initial outlook that calls for a 50 percent probability of a near normal season, and a 25 percent probability of an above normal season. In an announcement made May 21, NOAA forecasters also stated that “there is a 70 percent chance of having nine to 14 named storms, of which four to seven could become hurricanes, including one to three major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5).”

According to Renesys Corp., a firm that tracks Internet connectivity, the outages that followed Hurricane Ike last year caused the widest disruption of U.S. Internet service since the Northeast blackout of 2003. At its peak, Ike took out more than 400 networks for at least an hour each, leaving countless homes, businesses and government offices without connectivity.[1] <#_ftn1>

“Landline connections are not always reliable when hurricanes or other disasters strike, forcing organizations to cease operations until connectivity is restored,” said Mike Cook, senior vice president at Hughes. “This can mean significant loss of revenue for businesses, and disruption of government services, which are needed most in recovery operations. HughesNet Emergency Business Internet quickly restores those vital connections.”

Businesses can order directly from Hughes by calling (877) 337-3880. Government agencies can order via Hughes’ GSA Schedule 70.

To learn more about HughesNet services, visit www. hughesnet.com .

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International today announced the inaugural winners of its Horizon Award. The Horizon Award acknowledges the efforts of communications centers that have proactively assessed and met the technological and operational needs of their center, employees and service population and are presented to one large center and one small center. The awards will be presented at the APCO International 75th Annual Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas, Nev. on August 18.

The 2009 Horizon Award for a Large Center is being presented to Fairfax County (Va.) Department of Public Safety Communications. The Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications is a next generation 9-1-1 center servicing Fairfax County, Virginia, a community of nearly 400 square miles and a population over one million. It is co-located with the Virginia State Police, the Virginia Department of Transportation Traffic Management Center and the Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management Emergency Operations Center.

The 2009 Horizon Award for a Small Center is being presented to Cambria 9-1-1 (Penn.). Cambria 9-1-1 provides 9-1-1 calltaking and dispatching for the 47 fire departments, 23 emergency medical stations and 37 police departments in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. They recently completed rebanding establishing full countywide interoperability.

“APCO International is proud to honor the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications and Cambria 9-1-1 with these awards and call attention to the technological advancements they have made to enhance their life-saving services,” APCO International Executive Director George S. Rice, Jr. said.

The APCO International 75th Annual Conference and Exposition will be held August 16-20 in Las Vegas, Nev. For more information on the APCO International 75th Annual Conference and Exposition, visit www.apco2009.org . To obtain a press pass for the APCO International 75th Annual Conference and Exposition, please contact Courtney McCarron Hastings at 571.312.4400 x7002 or mccarronc@apcointl.org.