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York County Emergency Communications Plays Critical Role in Establishing New Alarm Monitoring Data Exchange Standards

Posted on: Friday, 20 February 2009, 14:05 CST

TEMECULA, Calif., Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International has approved an American National Standard (ANS) for electronically transmitting information between alarm monitoring companies and Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) as the result of an effort led by the York County Emergency Communications Division -- a PlantCML(R) customer -- and several other public safety agencies throughout the state of Virginia.

This new standard will enable alarm-monitoring companies to exchange data and more effectively communicate with thousands of PSAPs across the nation. This will improve the accuracy and speed of information relayed, allowing agencies to dispatch resources more quickly to emergencies, and will ultimately promote more efficient and effective public safety and data interoperability nationwide.

"York County, under its director Terry Hall, has shown tremendous leadership on this important issue and we are proud to have them as a PlantCML customer," said Tim Fuller, president and CEO of PlantCML. "This is what Next Generation is all about -- the improvement of PSAP operational effectiveness and public safety through the efficient communication of non-traditional data."

According to APCO, there are three primary uses for this standard: initial notification of an alarm event; bi-directional updates of the status between an alarm monitoring company and the PSAP; and bi-directional updates of other events between an alarm monitoring company and a PSAP. Not only will the new standard improve accuracy and speed, it will reduce the number of calls received at the PSAP as alarm monitoring companies make over 30 million 9-1-1 calls to PSAPs per year.

Virginia's York County Emergency Communications Division has worked on the testing and adoption of this new standard in partnership with APCO International, the IJIS Institute, the City of Richmond Department of Information Technology, the Richmond Police Department's Division of Emergency Communications, the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), and Vector Security.

About PlantCML

PlantCML, an EADS North America company, is the industry's leading provider of crisis communications and response technologies. For four decades, the company has developed and supported comprehensive solutions for call processing, incident and records management and Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD). Today, PlantCML is pioneering the next generation of 9-1-1 communications through Voice over IP-enabled applications, interoperable P25 radio systems and advanced emergency notification technologies. For more information, visit www.plantcml.com.

About York County Emergency Communications Division (Va.)

The York County Emergency Communications Division's mission is to provide the first point of contact for the public to report an emergency, to dispatch appropriate resources and personnel and to support operations through an ever-changing state of the art, comprehensive communications infrastructure. The division serves nearly 65,000 citizens within its 108 square miles on a peninsula formed by the James and York Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, and is part of the Hampton Roads region. For more information, visit www.yorkcounty.gov.

SOURCE PlantCML

Source: PR Newswire

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