This week marks National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, and NTIA is joining the entire nation in saluting our dedicated 911 telecommunicators. The dedicated professionals who answer our country’s 911 calls are a crucial first touch point to communities and individuals experiencing emergency situations. Whether taking and triaging initial calls for assistance, routing life-saving emergency medical services, or dispatching and coordinating field responders, America’s 911 professionals save lives each and every day.
Americans each year make more than 240 million calls to 911. Each of those calls represents a person in need of help, and they’re often the most tense, personal calls one can make. No matter where you live, that call is handled by dedicated professionals who staff, maintain, and manage our nation’s 911 centers and systems.
In 2019, NTIA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded over $109 million to 33 states, the District of Columbia and two tribal nations for projects designed to modernize the current systems and move our nation closer to Next Generation 911 (NG911). When fully implemented, NG911 will allow telecommunicators to keep pace with the advanced technology that is already used by the public they serve.
NTIA applauds all those public safety telecommunicators who dedicate themselves to helping others. NTIA is a champion of the public safety community and applauds all of the public safety telecommunicators who dedicate themselves to saving lives each day.