By Donny Jackson

Leaders of two key 911 organizations—NENA: The 9-1-1 Association and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO)—wrote a joint letter to both leading presidential candidates, seeking support for federal funding to help pay for the technological transition to IP-based next-generation 911 (NG911).

NENA CEO Brian Fontes and APCO CEO and Executive Director Mel Maier signed the joint letters, the bodies of which were identical, except for being sent to different presidential campaigns—the Democratic ticket led by Vice President Kamala Harris and the Republican ticket headed by former President Donald Trump.

“We write to urge your campaign to press for passage of critical federal funding legislation to upgrade our nation’s emergency response infrastructure to Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1),” the joint letters state. “This issue touches at the core of the safety and security of all Americans.

“We respectfully ask that you make full funding of NG9-1-1 via any legislative vehicle a central tenet of your campaign platform to ensure our nation’s 9-1-1 professionals have the modern tools and resources they need to perform their lifesaving work.”

Delivered to the presidential campaigns earlier this month, the letters note that 911 systems “are largely based on 50+ year old technology,” meaning they do not meet the technological expectations of the public.

“A member of the public needing emergency assistance is often limited to voice calls and some basic text and cannot share images, video, or other data that would provide real-time actionable information to emergency responders,” the letters state. “Further, today’s outdated 9-1-1 systems cannot seamlessly exchange information with each other and are susceptible to outages, cyberattacks, and other vulnerabilities that have adversely impacted the public’s ability to contact 9-1-1 in an emergency.”

The letters from Maier and Fontes note the significant bipartisan support last year for H.R. 3565—the Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act—which calls for US$15 billion in federal funding for NG911 deployments throughout the nations. Indeed, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved the bill by a 50-0 margin in May 2023.

“Enactment of NG9-1-1 funding legislation will provide the more than 100,000 9-1-1 professionals across the country with improved situational awareness, resulting in a faster and more efficient response for the members of the public they protect,” according to the letters. “NG9-1-1 will begin saving lives the moment it is implemented.

“Achieving NG9-1-1 is also a national security imperative, as it will lead to enhanced response to natural and man-made disasters, protection against cyberattacks including state-sponsored attacks, and support for homeland defense efforts in the event of a national emergency.”

Despite the overwhelming support that H.R. 3565 received from the House committee, the  bill has not made any tangible progress during the past 15 months. The legislative proposal has not been considered by the full House, and no accompanying bill has been introduced in the Senate to date.

One reason H.R. 3565 received such bipartisan support last year is that the bill also proposes to fully fund the FCC’s “Rip and Replace” program that is estimated to be about US$3 billion short of the money needed to replace gear from China-based manufacturers—notably, Huawei and ZTE—from US commercial networks. A standalone House bill that would address this issue was introduced in August without any language regarding NG911 funding, but that proposal has not advanced through the committee level to date.

Meanwhile, any new laws must be approved by lawmakers before this Congress ends in roughly three months—a timetable made more challenging by most members of Congress campaigning for reelection in November. Any legislation not passed during that period would have reintroduced in the new Congress that will take office in January, when either Harris or Trump is expected to be inaugurated as the new president.