It's National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, when we honor the dedicated professionals who answer the public's calls for help and dispatch life-saving assistance.
This past year was especially challenging for the public safety community. As the pandemic raged, the volume of 911 calls reached record levels in some locations. Telecommunicators, most of whom continued to work on-site, developed protocols to screen 911 callers for COVID-19 symptoms in order to better prepare first responders. Some areas were also hit with natural disasters, from tropical storms and wildfires to hurricanes and severe winter weather. Throughout these difficult times, telecommunicators were there to assist us – often while coping with these same challenges in their personal lives.
To these invaluable 911 professionals: we are grateful for your service.
The FCC continues to work on ways to support telecommunicators and other 911 professionals as you carry out your important missions. Later this month, for example, the Commission is tentatively scheduled to vote on a proposal to promote public safety by ensuring that 911 call centers and consumers receive timely and useful information about network disruptions that affect 911 service. If the Commission votes to move forward, we will seek public comment on these potential new rules.
I also want to highlight the FCC’s Public Safety Support Center, a web portal where Public Safety Answering Points can report problems related to 911 service, including outages, fraudulent or spoofed 911 calls, missing or inaccurate location information with a 911 call, text-to-911 service problems, and carrier lines of demarcation issues. You can also provide updates to the FCC’s Master PSAP Registry and submit questions about the FCC’s rules and other 911 topics. Here’s a tip sheet about the Public Safety Support Center that may be useful to you. Our team will respond promptly to any inquiries.
Of course as always, our FCC Operations Center is available 24 hour a day, every day, to assist you with urgent matters. Just call us at (202) 418-1122.
Thank you again for helping to keep the public safe.