States Seek a 21st-Century Upgrade to 911 Infrastructures

June 13, 2017

As vital as 911 systems are to a city and its citizens, aging systems and vulnerabilities to attack are seemingly putting 911 call centers on shaky ground.

Most recently, Portland, Ore., was called out by investigators in a report that found that its Bureau of Emergency Communications was misreporting hold times for callers and excluding the longest waits from its statistics. While the national standard is to have 90 percent of calls answered within 10 seconds, the report found that just 30 percent of calls were being answered within that time limit...