Worries in the US about the classification for 911 Operators

In a letter to the Standard Occupational Classification Policy Committee (SOCPC) of the United States’ Bureau of Labor Statistics, the head of the FCC’s Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau (PSHSB), David Grey Simpson, has argued the case for special classification for the country’s 911 operators.

Simpson mentioned in his letter that currently in the US, the nearly 100,000 men and women working as 911 call-takers and dispatchers are classified under the "Police, Fire, and Ambulance Dispatcher" category (43-503 1), which is grouped within Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Major Group 43-0000, "Office and Administrative Support Occupations," a category that also includes commercial and other non- public safety call-takers and dispatchers, as well as many other categories of administrative workers.

Unfortunately The SOCPC has initially declined to accept these recommended changes, stating that in its view the work performed by public safety telecommunicators "is that of a dispatcher, not a first responder," and that separating public safety telecommunicators from other dispatcher categories "would be confusing.

But is is very clear that throughout the next decade, the Nation's PSAPs will be at the center of this transition as they migrate from legacy circuit-switched telephone technology to Internet Protocol (IP) based networks that will support not only 911 voice communications but also text, data, and video, data analytics, GIS mapping, and targeted alerting. Even in the early stages of this transition, the shift in technology is leading to an evolution in the role of public safety telecommunicator, which increasingly encompasses not only call-taking and dispatch, but also the integration and analysis of multiple sources of information to determine the appropriate response to any given emergency.

Today, many PSAPs are also taking on a new role in which they not only receive 911 calls and dispatch first responders, but also analyze external information sources, such as photos; video from police body cameras, traffic cameras, or other publicly accessible cameras; machine- to-machine sensor inputs, such as Shot-Spotter; and alarms indicating traffic flow. Synthesizing this information as a team, telecommunicators in the PSAP disseminate alerts or "reverse 911" calls to the public as part of the emergency response. They coordinate activities with other agencies and, at times, are brought directly into the response when an on-scene participant engages the telecommunicator for mediation or other dc-escalating effort.

These trends provide clear indication of the expanded scope of responsibility for public safety telecommunicators that exists in the NG9 11 environment.

In short: The public safety telecommunicator's position has transformed from a clerical staff handling telephone calls and incidents with manual methods, to technically savvy protective service professionals managing multiple integrated technology systems to track and manage public safety field resources and responses. The public safety telecommunicator position will continue its evolution with the integration of Next Generation 911 technologies.

New skill sets will be needed for 9-1 -1 Telecommunicators [including] how broadband implications and implementations will affect the PSAP. . . . NG9-1-l technology will enable PSAPs to utilize broadband data in ways that will transform how the public reaches 9-1-1 and how telecommunicators communicate with first responders.

Other IP- based technologies, including those supported by smartphones, tablets, and mobile apps, are available throughout the general public and are capable of sending an array of information to the PSAP. As a result, PSAPs of the future will be the nerve center, managing data-rich communications via broadband technology with 9-1 -1 callers and first responders. 9-1-1 Authorities need to be mindful that NG9- 1-1 and Public Safety broadband operations and policies should be built into PSAP training and education,'

The FCC’s Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau now hopes that the SOCPC will change its view to the position of the 911 operators.