On July 19, the FCC issued a new ruling aimed at accelerating the deployment of next-generation 911 (NG911) across the U.S. According to this new ruling, once a state or region’s 911 Authority (the governmental entity that operates or has administrative authority over all or any aspect of the NG911 network) requests certain NG911 capabilities, landline, wireless and VoIP companies must deliver calls per the 911 Authority’s request within six to 12 months. The ruling also clarifies the extent to which communications companies are responsible for costs associated with transitioning to NG911.
This is a significant step forward because many states have experienced protracted delays and prolonged costs in transitioning away from legacy 911 systems due to a lack of cooperation from certain communications companies. Managing 911 traffic on both legacy and IP networks can also result in an increased risk of 911 outages. With this new ruling in place, NG911 stakeholders will be able to avoid unnecessary spending on legacy 911 networks, freeing up significant resources to accelerate this transition across the country.
We’ve spent a lot of time in the past few months discussing how important the switch to NG911 is, and the potential scale this untapped market represents. It’s a growing market as well, expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2026, because modernization efforts have been lagging community demand. If you’re curious about why that is, we encourage you to read our recent post which discusses how the public safety market got to where it is today in detail, here.
In short, almost every stakeholder in the complex community that supports 911 services agrees that the systems currently in place require upgrades to support digital modes of communication and the information they transfer. With an explosion of connected devices capable of providing relevant emergency information (from our smartphones to traffic cameras and weather sensors), to new forms of data (including voice, text, images and location), legacy communications infrastructure built to route emergency calls from landlines must evolve to operate in the world we live in today.
While there have been attempts at the federal level to support NG911 deployments across the U.S., this FCC ruling is unequivocally the most concrete step to-date to accelerate the technology upgrade process.
At Comtech, we’ve been at the forefront of this generational shift and doing our part to make it happen. We’re excited about the possibilities this ruling creates, and look forward to helping drive NG911 into the future. If you’re interested in learning more about the public safety market and our role in it, please find more posts here: https://comtech.com/category/investor-content/
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain information in this blog post contains statements that are forward-looking in nature and involve certain significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results and performance could differ materially from such forward-looking information. The Company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings identify many such risks and uncertainties. Any forward-looking information in this press release is qualified in its entirety by the risks and uncertainties described in such Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
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