Core Services Initiative Will Advance Emergency Communications

COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance, the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) and the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) have jointly announced they will conduct a Core Services Initiative to significantly improve interoperable, inter-organisational communications and information sharing for emergency preparedness, response and recovery.

The initiative will leverage requirements and technical designs developed by COMCARE, OGC processes and standards-based technologies, and the skills, expertise and best practices of NENA and NASFM to advance this effort.

The need for Core Services has been consistently identified in FCC Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) reports, Congressional legislation, NENA's Next Generation Partner Program recommendations and in numerous other reports. In emergency situations, agencies need to share critical information, which requires that they know what organizations need specific information, or how to register to receive it, and where (computer, radio frequency or other) to send or retrieve information. COMCARE has designed two Core services to meet this need; an Emergency Provider Access Directory agency locator service and identity management/access control service. To move from design to deployment, COMCARE, NENA, and NASFM are seeking one or more technology partners to supply the "alpha" versions of these two Core Services. An Invitation to Qualify has been released. If you are interested in being considered as a technology partner, please contact Judith Woodhall at jwoodhall@comcare.org.

The Initiative will subsequently leverage the developed Core Services along with OGC's open standards to demonstrate the ability of authorized agencies to send warnings and alerts to the appropriate public, to send and receive emergency messages (data) to and from other authorised organisations, and to more easily link radio, cellular and land-line voice systems together.

The Core Services Initiative will have three phases. COMCARE will lead the first phase, focused on the development of the Core Services. During the second phase, a Core Services Interoperability Pilot will be conducted using OGC's proven piloting process to standards-enable the services to demonstrate interoperability of the Core Services with standards-based geospatial, sensor, location-based services, and other technologies for improved situational awareness. A third phase will emphasize field trials of the Core Services, showcasing their all hazards capabilities in real world settings. The end result will be tested core services that companies can competitively offer to the emergency response community in a standardized manner.

http://www.comcare.org/

http://www.firemarshals.org/

http://www.nena.org/