Distinguishing itself among competitors in a market that’s seeing more and more interest from enterprises, a Chicago-based provider of enhanced 911 solutions today announced that it’s the first company of its kind to complete a series of interoperability tests conducted by a nonprofit group that defines requirements and standards for effective and accessible 9-1-1 services in North America.

 

Officials at RedSky Technologies, Inc., which provides automated E911 solutions to the enterprise, among other offerings, say they’ve successfully completed next-generation 9-1-1 interoperability tests with its “Location Information Server,” a core component of its NG9-1-1 and E911 solution sets.

 

Impressively, RedSky (News - Alert) is the only enterprise 9-1-1 location solution provider to participate in the tests, which were conduct by the National Emergency Number Association at the nonprofit’s first-ever Industry Collaboration Event.

 

E911 is a technology that leverages location-based services to help emergency responders find the exact whereabouts of distressed 9-1-1 callers – a time-saving effort that’s designed to save lives as well as property. The technology is especially useful in large-campus structures – such as enterprise offices, universities, schools and hospitals – where a single street address may refer to a physical structure with multiple buildings, floors and rooms. More and more states are adopting legislation that requires enterprises to address E911 needs.

 

The industry event, which was held at Texas A&M University’s Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center, saw 16 public safety vendors gather to verify the interoperability of solutions being developed to meet NG9-1-1 standards being created by NENA’s Technical Committees, the Internet Engineering Task Force and other standards development organizations.

 

Bill Mertka, vice president of product management for RedSky and chairman of the event planning committee, said his company was pleased to participate.

 

“We feel this, and subsequent ICE tests planned by NENA, will be invaluable in helping to establish and verify the technical standards that will be the foundation of future Next Generation 9-1-1 systems and solutions,” Mertka said.

 

The company’s LIS is an IETF standards-compliant location server, providing the NG9-1-1 Location Information Server and SIP Proxy/Back-2-Back-User-Agent i3 element functionality as defined by NENA in their NG9-1-1 standards. The LIS can be used by 9-1-1 and public safety authorities, communications service providers, enterprises and communications endpoint devices (such as SIP-based devices, softphones, mobile devices and UC clients) to determine device location based on measured access network parameters, as well as by Emergency Call Routing Function/LoST server operators needing to determine endpoint location information for the purpose of routing NG 9-1-1 calls.

 

According to NENA Technical Issues Director Roger Hixson, the first NENA ICE interoperability testing event provided participating vendors the opportunity for significant insight into product designs necessary to achieve interoperability, both between NG9-1-1 components and between multiple NG9-1-1 systems.

 

“I’m glad to say this event was successful in moving those objectives forward,” he said.