Inside INdigital: A blast from the past

Guest blog written by
Laken Detweiler
Social Media Specialist - INdigital

On October 10 of this year, we saw the third anniversary of the very first Next-Gen 911 call in Alabama. Before that, in 2018, we celebrated 50 years of 911. This year is 52. As someone who doesn't have a public safety background, 911 not existing was never something I thought about. I'd never considered there hadn't always been a simple, three-digit number to call for help. I was a bit naive to believe that, I guess.

The first 911 call was placed on February 16, 1968, at 2 p.m. in Haleyville, AL. After a little reading, I learned that in 1957 the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended a universal emergency phone number. At this point, people just made a direct call to whomever they needed: police, fire, the hospital. For years the Federal Communications Commission and AT&T debated the idea of a single emergency number. Finally in January 1968, they met to create a solution, and 911 was established as the number to call during an emergency. 

On February 16, Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite, made the first 911 call from the mayor's office in Haleyville to U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill at the police station. At 2 p.m. that day, history was made when the bright red phone in the police station rang. President of Alabama Telephone Company, Bob Gallagher, thought a small company should have a shot at launching the 911 system. He and his plant manager started working on a plan. They began evaluating the company's 27 phone systems and chose Haleyville as the site where 911 would begin.

In 2016,  INdigital was awarded the statewide Alabama ESInet contract. As progress moved forward on the project, placing Alabama’s first Next-Generation 911 call in Haleyville seemed like a natural fit.  

"The Alabama Telephone Company in Haleyville made the first 911 call," said INdigital’s Executive Vice President, Eric Hartman. "…Additionally, Alabama Telephone Company was an Independent Telephone company, and INdigital is owned by thriving Independent Telephone companies. Although technology has changed, the commitment to community and service is what keeps these companies going for 100+ years in many cases."

On October 10, 2017, Alabama’s first Next-Gen 911 call was made. This time, current Mayor Ken Sunseri made the call to Executive Director Tim Webb of Winston County E9-1-1 Communications District. Fun fact, Webb has family ties to the original call placed in 1968. Webb was only three years old at the time, but his uncle, Ronnie Webb, ran the cable to the city hall. 

With the full transition to the statewide Next-Generation Emergency Network, Alabama has a much better system that allows for interoperability between all PSAPs in the state.

"Our state was pretty chopped up with different phone providers and...we were very limited on the ability to transfer calls with any caller and screen information because of that," Webb said. "It's just opening up the door to a lot of other means to get information to 911. The text[-FOR-911] has been a big thing that we actually do a lot of, mainly outbound text. When you get butt calls, nine times out of 10 times when you call them back, they're not going to answer, and we are going to leave them a message. We use the text-FROM-911 now, and we will send them back a text message and nine times out of 10 we get a response, 'oh I'm sorry didn't mean to dial.'"

INdigital's Next Generation Core Services for Alabama include emergency voice and text call routing, location information database services, network integration, and disaster recovery. All delivered via a redundant, private, and secure IP network. Their PSAPs utilize MEVO, Texty, and 911 Logix. MEVO provides an additional path for calls to be delivered in case the original paths are unavailable. It just provides another layer of redundancy for PSAPs so that they do not miss a call. Texty is our non-voice platform that provides text-TO and -FROM-911. While 911 Logix offers valuable data to PSAPs, it's a web-based real-time analysis service to help PSAPs understand call volume and trends. 

"Obviously with the MEVO it's just an additional means of backup, one more layer of redundancy that we've never had the capability of having here just because of our geographical location, out in the middle of the country," said Webb. "We're mostly forested on the north end, and we have a big Alabama Power reserve in the southeast of the county. So not a lot of industry and therefore not a lot of infrastructures. It [the statewide project] has built some additional redundancy, simply for a fiber cut or failure in the primary 911 system."

Haleyville has been at the forefront of 911, from that first call in the country to the first Next-Gen 911 call. They take pride in that, and it was an honor to be a part of the project.

"The 911 community in Alabama is incredible and is the reason the project has been successful," said Hartman. "It [the first Next-Gen 911 call] was a simple way to give the nod to the work done by others in the past and to show our ongoing support for the future of the project. It was a humbling day of listening and learning about the many stories of 911." 

https://alabamanewscenter.com/2015/06/05/which-alabama-town-is-home-to-the-nations-first-911-call-it-will-celebrate-first-responders-june-5-6/