This exciting new resource comprehensively describes Next Generation Emergency Services. It will enable implementers, regulators, legal and technical professionals to understand how the introduction of this new approach to delivering emergency services will impact their work. Beginning with an overview of the field and explaining what will change as the transition is made from circuit-switched to IP-based networks, the book provides guidance and detail related to the technologies that enable Next Generation services; the current state of emergency services; how to plan and execute a move to a standards-compliant NG9-1-1 service including the network design, the operations and maintenance procedures, and the legal and regulatory requirements and mandates.

This Handbook explains NG9-1-1 networks: functions that they provide; the environments in which they are implemented; and the process by which they can be built and maintained. It provides a comparison to Basic 9-1-1 and E9-1-1 systems that dominate the field of emergency services today. The reader is guided through an emergency call from its inception by the Caller to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Call Taker to Dispatch to First Responders, explaining how Basic 9-1-1, E9-1-1 and NG9-1-1 support each leg of this journey. Chapters explaining the underlying networks and the service standards provide details to those who need them for their daily work or as reference.

Next Generation 9-1-1 services are carried over data networks that use the Internet Protocol (IP) to establish communications flows between the calling and called parties. These flows are created in a fundamentally different way than are those created on the circuit switched networks that carry Basic 9-1-1 and E9-1-1 calls. The differences between packet switched and circuit switched networks are explained and the challenges and opportunities offered by creating call flows using packet switched networks are also described.

Supplementary Material: Click here to download a comprehensive glossary of terms used in Handbook of Next-Generation Emergency Services.