Month: December 2019

BREAKING: Student calls 911, leads to DUI arrest of bus driver

BREAKING NEWS — Quick-thinking on the part of a 10-year-old boy not only saved several students, but resulted in the arrest of his intoxicated bus driver. The fifth-grade elementary student was on his way to school in California when he noticed something was wrong, alerting authorities. The boy is now being called a hero for…

Read More

OPINION: New Orleans City shutdown by hackers is a sign of things to come

OPINION — We’ve long known that malware can bring corporate and private computers, together with entire IT systems, to their knees. But a rash of recent events demonstrates how city authorities are struggling to come to terms with ever more virulent forms of ransomware, according to one writer. Read the full opinion piece below. (https://www.verdict.co.uk/new-orleans-city-shutdown-by-hackers-is-a-sign-of-things-to-come/)…

Read More

ON DEMAND: What is the future of dispatch? Listen to free webinar now!

WEBINAR — Pyramid Consulting’s most recent webinar is now available on demand, and can be listened to for free by all readers! Titled “Next Generation Dispatching – What is the Future of Dispatch”, the webinar was hosted by Urgent Communications last week, and was sponsored by Avtec. Read the full description below! “Historically, 911 operations…

Read More

BREAKING: Language to reclassify 911 telecommunicators dropped from funding bill

BREAKING NEWS — 911 dispatchers across America will have to wait longer to be recognized as first-responders instead of clerical workers, after key language doing so was recently removed from a defense funding bill. Read how industry advocates are continuing to push ahead with their plans for reclassification, in the full story below. (https://urgentcomm.com/2019/12/13/defense-bill-does-not-include-language-to-reclassify-911-telecommunicators/) “Language…

Read More

OPINION: 5G promises more than just high data speeds for first responders

OPINION — Panelists at an Operation Convergent Response (OCR) 2019 event recently said 5G technology deployments in the public-safety sector mean more than just high speeds for first responders, including the transmitting high-definition video directly into emergency call centers. Read the full story below. (https://urgentcomm.com/2019/12/11/5g-promises-more-than-just-high-data-speeds-for-first-responders-panelists-say/) “Higher data speeds are the focus of current 5G deployments,…

Read More

BREAKING: Pyramid Project Manager receives big APCO accreditation

BREAKING NEWS — Pyramid Consulting’s newest team member recently received a big APCO accreditation, bringing his plentiful public-safety experience to Pyramid’s clients. Just last week, Project Manager Gary Bates received the Registered Public Safety Leader (RPL) Designation from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO). This accreditation is in addition of his previous completion…

Read More

BREAKING: 3-year-old calls 911, saves grandma who collapsed

UTAH — A 3-year-old girl from Bluffdale, Utah is being called a hero after helping to save her grandmother’s life by calling 911. When little Sawyer Poole’s grandmother suddenly fell ill due to pneumonia and dehydration and passed out in the upstairs bathroom, Sawyer was the only one home to help. Sawyer’s mother, Alisha Poole,…

Read More

ONGOING: No end in sight for FirstNet interoperability debate

UNITED STATES –Although more than 9,800 U.S. agencies are on board with the nationwide public safety communications broadband network FirstNet, a debate persists about the very issue that FirstNet is designed to solve: interoperability. Read the full opinion piece from Government Technology below. (https://www.govtech.com/public-safety/No-End-in-Sight-for-FirstNet-Interoperability-Debate.html) “Although more than 9,800 U.S. agencies are now on board with the nationwide…

Read More

BREAKING: FirstNet MCPTT launch delayed until first quarter of 2020, AT&T says

BREAKING NEWS: News agencies are reporting FirstNet push-to-talk capabilities will not be available to users until 2020, but AT&T says the deployment of the technology will happen early in the year. Read the full story below. ( https://urgentcomm.com/2019/12/04/firstnet-mcptt-launch-delayed-until-first-quarter-of-2020-att-says/ ) “Public-safety users will have to wait until the first quarter of next year to experience push-to-talk…

Read More

SCHOOL SAFETY: Making the case for text-to-911 for emergencies

UNITED STATES — There has long been a push for text-to-911 technology, due to how texts can sometimes get through when a voice call cannot, and while some states have adopted the tech, large areas of the United States remain uncovered by text-to-911 capabilities. Currently only one third of the country has the ability to…

Read More