2018-12-19

Motorola Solutions and Greater Harris County 9-1-1 Emergency Network Deliver Next Generation Call Routing

Source: The Critical Communications Review | Gert Jan Wolf editor

Greater Harris County (GHC) serves 49 cities and two counties in the Houston area, which is an area of approximately 5.5 million people.

Greater Harris County (GHC) 9-1-1 Emergency Network, Texas has completed the successful implementation of the Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) VESTA® Router Service for GHC Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP). This is a milestone step for GHC in the transition to next generation call routing.

GHC serves 49 cities and two counties in the Houston area, which is an area of approximately 5.5 million people. It is the largest 9-1-1 system in Texas and the third largest regional system in the U.S. It has been administering 9-1-1 emergency services since 1983.

The GHC/Motorola Solutions deployment fulfills a critical promise of NG9-1-1: that 9-1-1 agencies will have the opportunity to do things differently and take a bigger role in their destiny. With the approach GHC and Motorola Solutions are taking, GHC is able to leverage existing assets, such as their data centers, IP network, multiple lab environments and 24x7 Network Operations Center. The service for GHC is provided via tariff as an unbundled service, offering economies of scale to GHC and all PSAPs who join the network.

“Motorola Solutions is proud to be working with GHC in their migration from legacy to next-generation technology,” says Dan Twohig, Motorola Solutions vice president of software sales. “Our long-standing partnership has enabled a collaborative solution to better serve over 20 percent of the Texas population’s emergency needs.”

This router service is part of Motorola Solutions’ command center software suite, CommandCentral, which provides a unified experience across emergency call handling, command and control, and management of records and evidence. It includes a complete NG9-1-1 portfolio that delivers the critical elements agencies need including call routing, emergency service IP networks (ESInet), GIS services, cybersecurity and network monitoring dedicated to public safety.