Fairfax County Transforms 911 Communications with AT&T
AT&T ESInet Increases 911 Reliability and Enhances Emergency Communications
Fairfax County is transforming its 911 communications with AT&T ESInet™. The county recently selected the new service from AT&T* to give 911 call takers enhanced tools to improve reliability and speed emergency responsiveness for those in need of assistance.
AT&T ESInet brings a smarter way to deliver 911 calls. Built on AT&T’s industry-leading network, the IP-based call routing service uses the National Emergency Number Association’s i3 standards to modernize decades-old 911 infrastructure. And in today’s mobile environment, that’s crucial.
With AT&T ESInet, Fairfax County can:
- Manage how calls and text messages are routed to help ensure they reach the desired 911 agency. Location-based, geospatial routing lets public safety answering points (PSAPs) quickly adjust their service boundaries to accommodate emergencies. This allows them to provide a more targeted response and will help save precious time.
- Handle unexpected call volumes. When calls spike, AT&T ESInet can automatically distribute calls to neighboring PSAPs. This makes it easier to speed emergency responsiveness and manage 911 calls.
- Apply dynamic routing capabilities. Using a highly secure, private network connection, PSAPs can set rules for how to route 911 voice calls and text messages. For example, a rule could be set to route all calls originating in a defined area directly to a special command post within a pre-defined event boundary like a college campus. This gives public safety direct, on-site access to 911 callers.
- Maintain service during a natural or man-made disaster. As a nationwide service, Fairfax County can access geographically diverse and redundant call processing locations throughout the country for support as they need it.
- Improve incident awareness. In the future, Fairfax County PSAPs will be able to support pictures and videos sent via text message.
“We’re helping cities, counties and states across the country connect to the future of 911 communications through AT&T ESInet,” said Brian Troup, vice president, AT&T Public Sector. “And we look forward to delivering the next generation of public safety to Fairfax County’s emergency response centers.”
Other benefits of AT&T ESInet are:
- A defense-in-depth, private network with multiple layers of security. This includes encryption, firewalls and intrusion detection/prevention. This keeps data separate from the public internet and helps ensure 911 voice quality. It also helps protect Fairfax County 911 infrastructure from cyber threats like DDoS attacks.
- Interoperability and compatibility with both next generation and legacy 911 call handling systems and services using the i3 standard framework.
AT&T ESInet builds on the evolving emergency communications tools Fairfax County has access to. In July, Virginia opted in to FirstNet – America’s only communications platform purpose-built for first responders. With both AT&T ESInet and FirstNet, Fairfax County’s public safety community will be able to create an efficient flow of communications from the caller to the 911 call taker to the first responder.
AT&T is a leader in first responder connectivity. We’ve been enabling and innovating public safety communications for nearly 140 years to help first responders focus on what matters most: protecting communities and saving lives.
To learn more about our support of public safety and AT&T ESInet, check out corp.att.com/public-safety.
*About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions around the globe connect with leading entertainment, business, mobile and high speed internet services. We offer the nation’s best data network** and the best global coverage of any U.S. wireless provider. We’re one of the world’s largest providers of pay TV. We have TV customers in the U.S. and 11 Latin American countries. Nearly 3.5 million companies, from small to large businesses around the globe, turn to AT&T for our highly secure smart solutions.
AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. Additional information about AT&T products and services is available at about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at facebook.com/att and on YouTube at youtube.com/att.
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**Claim based on the Nielsen Certified Data Network Score. Score includes data reported by wireless consumers in the Nielsen Mobile Insights survey, network measurements from Nielsen Mobile Performance and Nielsen Drive Test Benchmarks for Q1 + Q2 2017 across 121 markets.
