Procurement Underway for New Next Generation 911 System
Delivering on its promise to pay back what was erroneously taken, the Leon Guerrero-Tenorio Administration has made deposits into the Enhanced 911 Emergency Reporting (E911) Fund totaling $3.8 million. With the completion of the payments, the Guam Fire Department is able to continue to move forward with the procurement of a service contract for the upgrade of its Next Generation 911 (NG911) System.
“Our E911 Operations at the Guam Fire Department play a critical role in saving lives and responding to emergencies. We must have an emergency call system that will help our first responders fulfill their mission of responding to the emergency needs of our people,” said Acting Gov. Joshua Tenorio. “This is why at the start of our Administration, Gov. Leon Guerrero prioritized returning what was taken from the E911 Fund and did so by managing our cash without affecting any of the critical services we provide to our people.”
The procurement for a lease-to-own system was designed to ensure that regular maintenance services and updates are built into the contract. GFD’s antiquated system does not include a maintenance component and availability of parts has been scarce.
“The new 911 system will have state-of-the-art equipment that includes SMS, video and picture messaging capabilities, ability to communicate with speech impaired and special needs callers, more precise identification of location of emergency, and IP-based routing, among other updated features,” said GFD Fire Chief Dan Stone.