Next Generation 911 - known as NG911 in the public safety community - is the future framework for 911 call delivery in the USA and Canada. The framework has been created to upgrade the ability for people in distress to use modern technology and send data such as text messages and photos to help first responders more quickly locate people in need. NG911 is a closed digital (IP-based) 911 network that is standards-based, scalable, secure, redundant, and built to meet the needs of public safety.

NG911 modernizes 911 infrastructure to accommodate how people communicate today—largely through mobile and digital devices. NG911 allows the public to send digital data to 911 data centers, or public safety answering points (PSAPs), and lets the PSAPs receive data from other transmitting devices. NG911 enables faster network communication and call load sharing between PSAPs. In mass casualty incidents or natural disasters—when the PSAP becomes overwhelmed by calls—NG911 allows for calls to be automatically transferred and processed by another available 911 call center.

The Next Generation 911 digital framework will require network management from one or more data centers per city, but it does not offer an affordable solution for remote locations or small villages, representing a big percentage in the USA and Canada. Because of the lower amount of calls (network bandwidth) there is no need for a fully equipped datacenter like the bigger cities have, therefore these locations rely on a dedicated server or small groups of local people to make sure the 911 digital service is available. However, in case of a network issue, hard to reach locations will have to wait for an expert to be sent to the place, resulting in call quality degrading, or dropped calls or, in the worst-case scenario, leaving the community/area at high risk as the emergency service might not be available. If time represents a security issue, also the costs of maintaining the 911 service will be quite high in case of issues. The ideal solution is a portable device capable of sending fast and accurate troubleshooting remotely.

Profitap helped a North-central State in the USA in the need to upgrade to the Next Generation 911 framework with this specific need: provide visibility and fast troubleshooting for remote locations. The solution offered is a customized version of IOTA - the award-winning all-in-one network traffic monitoring solution – deployed in several strategic locations. IOTA was easy to deploy in the field and provided the customer detailed network traffic visibility to critical applications and data, allowing them to obtain real-time and historical network traffic without affecting the network performance and security. With the deployment of IOTA, the network engineers were able to get a better overview of what was happening on the network much faster, reducing MTTR significantly. In many cases, once an issue was pin-pointed, it could be resolved remotely. But another benefit was that even in case on-site staff was still required to fix the problem, they were better prepared since they already knew the origin of the issue. This way the right equipment and replacement tools could be brought in advance.

How IOTA makes a difference

• Network performance is maintained by keeping a close eye on the most essential performance metrics, retransmissions, packet loss, latency, throughput, availability, and connectivity.
• Monitors in the network hosts, top talkers, bandwidth, latency, TCP, UDP, IPv4, IPv6, VLAN and DNS using a premade and intuitive set of comprehensive dashboards.
• Tracking down security flaws with full visibility over 200+ applications and protocols (DNS, HTTP, SSH, Office 365, Skype, Whatsapp, Netflix, etc.)
• Fully managed over HTTPS and with built-in VPN, it offers easy deployment and usage in any network topology.
• Diagnose remote problems without on-site assistance, usually pricy and not possible during COVID 19 pandemic.
• The monitored network is isolated from the management interface, and therefore helps to avoid any risk of injection of MITM attack through the device.

Real-time network monitoring starts with high-quality infrastructures. Discover the Profitap portfolio for customized government IT network monitoring infrastructure solutions.