When Mission Critical Is Really Mission Critical

There, I'd see the police dispatcher - in the early days of mass cell phone service - try to field 911 calls from cell phone callers. The calls came from all over the Northeast, and usually the dispatcher's first job was to try to figure out from which state and region the frantic caller was dialing. Once that was out of the way, she could pull out a phone book, find the local police department from that area, and try to route the call to them. On a good day, that could take a few minutes.

Things have gotten better since then, but Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz says there is still room for improvement:

Surely we're at a point where if the network is a social utility, then we should collapse our views on emergency services and web services? And that similar to the imperative of making a 911 call from any cell phone, authorized or not, we must evolve our thinking to consider the nature of internet based emergency services. Will all services rely on a phone call? Surely that's not the most scalable communication mechanism - a criticism no one can levy against the internet. So at what point do we realize that critical information will come in all media types - telephonic, static (text message), or other time based content types (an IP phone call, or streaming audio or video segment)? If you saw you know what I'm referring to - if the internet is a social utility, surely we should guarantee access to emergency services of all forms, and not simply lowest common denominator text messages. And surely the idea that one must have paid Microsoft - or Sun, Adobe or any other company - for the privilege of accessing emergency services - runs counter to the objective of bridging the digital divide ..?

Schwartz is thinking like a good technology executive, but is he thinking like a first responder, like a cop, dispatcher, firefighter or EMT? He continues:

What should we mandate? That all public information, that is, all data and services provided by governments, from 'who to call' lists to video broadcasts of critical information, leverage open, royalty free, freely sublicensable standards.

(Emphasis added.)

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When you talk about governments selecting technology, you're talking about first responders - cops, firefighters, EMTs, search and rescue crews - who, above all, want to make sure the stuff works, and works with other technologies. They want to be able to talk to each other when lives are on the line. One of the big, tragic glitches during the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City was that emergency services radios didn't all work together, or perform well enough, according to The 9-11 Commission's report last year.

According to that report, in the middle of the attacks that day:

The FDNY chiefs in the increasingly crowded North Tower lobby were confonting critical choices with little to no information. They had ordered units up the stairs to report back on conditions, but did not know what the impact floors were; they did not know if any stairwells into the impact zone were clear; and they did not know whether water for firefighting would be available on the upper floors. They also did not know what the fire and impact zone looked like from the outside.

What if they had that information? In many ways, it's too painful to think about - on yesterday's fourth anniversary of the attacks all the victims' names were read in a New York ceremony remembering the 9/11 tragedy. It took hours to get through all the names.

It's still too important not to fix.

So here's an idea: Instead of sniping at government agencies for using the other guy's technology, talk to the first responders. Meet with New York City firefighters. Talk to some New Orleans cops. Talk to their local integrators. Pick up the phone and call Microsoft, or Intel, or Oracle, or IBM - whoever it takes.

Should there be IP-based sensor technology in high-rise buildings and in flood zones? Can better text-messaging features be added to first responders' two-way radios? What's the best way to ensure that local integrators can stay on top of it and keep it working? For cops, firefighters and rescue workers, lives are on the line.

When mission critical is really mission critical, it's a bad idea to leave them flipping through the phone book or hearing nothing but static.