TiPS Today in Public Safety with Fletch

TiPS Episode 25 1128 - SBC Configuration Fiascos

Today’s episode digs into the scariest cybersecurity threat in NG911…

the one sitting INSIDE your network.

Session Border Controllers and Firewalls keep your ESInet safe — until they don’t. And too often, the biggest disruptions to 9-1-1 call delivery come not from nation-state attackers or ransomware groups, but from misconfigured security rules designed with the best intentions.

In this episode, Fletch explores:

• How SIP SBCs can block legitimate 9-1-1 calls
• Why silent drops are so dangerous
• The hidden impact of rate-limiting and DPI engines
• The difference between generic VoIP rules and NG911-aware rules
• How firmware updates break PSAP call flow
• Real examples from the field (no naming names!)
• What every ECC should audit quarterly
• Why NG911 security must be both strict and aware of public safety protocols

If you’ve ever wondered how a single unchecked firewall or SBC rule can disrupt emergency services for an entire county, this episode is going to open your eyes.

🎧 New TiPS episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at http://911TiPS.com
Follow http://x.com/@Fletch911 on X for more nsights, humor, and tech deep dives
Check out his Blogs at http://Fletch.TV

 Copyright ©2025 Fletch911, LLC Media Productions http://Fletch911.com 

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episode 25 1126 Geo Location Accuracy

“95% Certain… BUT 100% Wrong: The Confidence Score Problem”

What if your mapping screen showed a 95% confidence location for a 9-1-1 caller…

…but the caller wasn’t actually in that building…

or on that block…

or even on the right floor?

 

Welcome to today’s episode of TiPS: Today in Public Safety, where we dig into the surprisingly misunderstood realm of geo-confidence scores — the tiny percentages hidden behind every wireless 9-1-1 location fix that can quietly (and sometimes catastrophically) influence the decisions your ECC makes in seconds.

 

For years, the public safety industry has celebrated improvements in accuracy: better GPS, more towers, device-based hybrid location, Wi-Fi RTT, barometric Z-axis, and more. But behind all those numbers lives one crucial metric that rarely gets explained clearly:

 

👉 Confidence.

 

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

A 95% confidence score is not a guarantee.

It’s not even a confirmation.

It’s a probability — a test-lab probability — and when the real world shows up, those probabilities can drift, skew, or break entirely.

 

In this episode, we break down:

 

🛰️ 1. What a Confidence Score Really Means

 

Spoiler: It’s based on controlled testing in environments that do not include your downtown skyscrapers, RF hellscapes, old dorm buildings, or abandoned malls where wireless signals go to die.

 

📏 2. Why “95%” Can Still Be Wrong

 

An 8.7-meter uncertainty may sound tiny, but vertically it can represent three floors, and horizontally, several apartments. That’s a lot of doors for responders to knock on.

 

🌆 3. Why the Same Score Behaves Differently in Different Places

 

RF chaos. Multipath distortion. Construction interference. Carrier algorithm differences. Environmental quirks. Your confidence score might be perfect in one city and garbage in another.

 

🚒 4. What ECCs Actually Need: Operational Certainty

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episode 25 1124 - Turkey Day Testing for NG911

In today’s TiPS episode, Fletch explains the annual holiday disaster affectionately called The NG911 Turkey Test — the Thanksgiving surge that reveals every weakness in our public safety networks.

We discuss why Thanksgiving consistently generates the strangest call traffic of the year, what really fails during surge conditions, and how NG911 networks manage (or struggle with) large load swings, media ingestion, telematics storms, and location delays.

We cover:
- Travel-corridor saturation and selective-router overload
- Why location accuracy drops during high-mobility holidays
- Hybrid legacy/NG911 vulnerabilities during peak times
- IoT overreporting and telematics data surges
- Turkey-fryer fires (yes, plenty of them)
- And what ECCs can do to get ready before the stuffing hits the fan

If you’ve ever wondered what your PSAP looks like under extreme, predictable, high-stress holiday traffic — this is your episode.

Grab a plate, put on a headset, and let’s dig into it.

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

EiPS Episode 25 1121 - Dispatch Dopplegangers NG911 Digital Twins

In this episode of TiPS: Today in Public Safety, Fletch dives into a topic that sounds futuristic but is already knocking on the ECC door: AI-powered “dispatch doppelgängers.” These aren’t JUST chatbots, scripts, or templates — they’re digital twins of your best call takers, created from real performance data to help with training, simulations, and overflow triage.

Fletch breaks down what these AI replicas are, why they’re emerging now, and how they fit into the broader evolution of NG911 and modern public safety communications. We explore how these digital twins can support new dispatchers during training, run large-scale incident simulations, and even help lighten the load during storms, surges, and unpredictable high-traffic events.

But most importantly, this episode addresses the big fear head-on:

No — AI is not replacing call takers.

 

Instead, it’s becoming a support layer that strengthens consistency, quality, and readiness across the center. Think of it as giving your ECC a digital partner who never gets tired, never calls out sick, and never forgets the callback number. Think of it like your computer word processor, replacing your typewriter, which replaced physical punch-cards, which replaced yellow notepads and scrap paper.

We also dive into the uncomfortable but necessary stuff: ownership of performance data, liability, disclosure, legal chain of custody, and what happens when a digital twin performs better than the real thing. Fletch lays out the questions every ECC leader should be thinking about today before this technology becomes tomorrow’s standard.

If you’re a dispatcher, supervisor, ECC director, technologist, or just someone watching the rapid evolution of public safety tech — this episode will give you a clear, practical look at where AI fits, where it doesn’t, and how to prepare for what’s coming.

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episode 25 1119 - The NG911 Data Deluge in the ECC

In this episode of TiPS: Today in Public Safety, Fletch opens the door to the part of NG911 nobody really wants to talk about — the data closet.

As multimedia floods the ECC from every direction — drones, doorbell cameras, IoT sensors, telematics, citizen uploads, automated crash detection, AI transcripts — public safety centers are rapidly becoming accidental data centers.

And with this comes the real danger: storage systems pushed to the brink, retention requirements piling up, chain-of-custody rules tightening, and cloud bills that look like a mortgage payment.

Fletch breaks down and helps you rationalize:

• Why NG911 multiplies storage needs exponentially

• How retention mandates collide with multimedia

• The hidden costs of cloud storage in public safety

• The operational and legal risks of system overload

• The terrifying downstream impact of corrupted evidence

This is a brutally honest look at what’s coming — and what ECCs must do to survive the data tsunami. If your agency is anywhere near the NG911 roadmap, this episode is your early warning system.

 

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episide 25 1117 - Facing the Facts: Facial Recognition Ethics in Public Safety

In this episode of TiPS: Today in Public Safety, Fletch dives deep into the digital mirror of modern surveillance — facial recognition. Once a science-fiction fantasy, it’s now a standard tool in airports, schools, and law enforcement agencies across the country. But as its capabilities grow, so do the ethical concerns.

He explores both sides of the lens — the promise of faster suspect identification and life-saving alerts, and the peril of misidentification, racial bias, and privacy erosion. Fletch breaks down the “Four P’s” of ethical use — Policy, Permission, Provenance, and Proportionality — and examines how these principles must evolve alongside Next Generation 911 systems.

This isn’t just about technology. It’s about trust.

How do we balance innovation with individual rights?

And how do we ensure that systems designed to protect us don’t become systems that watch us?

Join the discussion as Fletch challenges public safety professionals to face the facts — and to shape the ethical future of intelligent surveillance before it shapes us.

#TiPS #PublicSafety #AI #Ethics #NG911 #Fletch911

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episode 25 1114 Quantum NG911 Call Routing

Quantum Dispatch: Where Seconds Don’t Wait Their Turn

What if your 9-1-1 call didn’t have to travel anywhere — it just existed everywhere at once? In this mind-bending episode, Fletch dives headfirst into the strange and brilliant world of quantum communication and explores how it could redefine the very concept of “response time.”

From Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” to DARPA’s quantum network prototypes, we’ll unpack how entanglement, quantum key distribution, and unhackable encryption could one day make NG911 faster, safer, and smarter than ever.

Fletch breaks it all down in plain English — with a few laughs along the way — explaining how future PSAP and ECC systems might instantly share data, dispatch resources, and validate critical calls simultaneously across jurisdictions. In this vision of Quantum Dispatch, seconds don’t just count… they exist twice.

🧠 You’ll Learn About:

• What quantum entanglement really means — and why it’s not just sci-fi anymore

• How quantum keys create communication that literally self-destructs if intercepted

• The potential for zero-latency call routing and AI-assisted dispatch across multiple ECCs

• Real-world research by DARPA, NIST, and global innovators like China’s Micius satellite

• Why NG911 may soon need a new kind of routing engine — one that speaks quantum

💡 Whether you’re a dispatcher, network engineer, or public-safety leader, this episode will make you rethink what’s possible when every second truly matters — and when those seconds refuse to wait their turn.

 

🎧 Listen at: 911TiPS.com

📺 Watch more TiPS episodes on: Fletch.TV

🔗 Follow Fletch: @Fletch911 on all platforms

 

#NG911 #QuantumDispatch #PublicSafety #QuantumCommunications #Fletch911 #TodayInPublicSafety

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  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com

TiPS Episode 25 1112 — Let's Do the NG911 Time Warp Again

OK, Public Safety, put on your headsets and fishnets —

because we’re doing the Time Warp again!

In this nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, that classic 'participation-movie from the 80's, Fletch takes a musical-themed romp through the endless loops of 911 innovation, where every “revolutionary” upgrade somehow looks suspiciously like the last one. Lots of promise, only partially solving the issues.

From the first 911 call in 1968 to the AI dispatch craze of today, Fletch explores why the industry keeps re-learning the same lessons — and what it’ll take to finally break the cycle. Technology can't forget the human component.

With humor, history, and a dash of theater, this episode pulls back the curtain on our obsession with progress that goes in circles. Because if you’re going to repeat history, you might as well sing along.

🎧 For our seasoned telecommunicators: Please enjoy a little nostalgia of wekends past, and bring along your 'toast'. Listen Now at 911TiPS.com

THEN EXPLAIN to your junior co-workers what Friday night fun at the Mall was all about back in the 80s and 90s.

#NG911 #PublicSafety #RockyHorror #AI #Dispatch #Fletch911 #Podcast

  REMEMBER  : NEW EPISODES are published each week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning - usually around 8AM on"Fletch's LinkedIn page [ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fletch911/ ]

For Fletch's Blogs, see his Wordpress Site at [ http://Fletch.TV ]
and you can follow him on Social Media (such as X) @Fletch911 
 
For NG911 Consulting Services - you can reach Fletch through Fletch 911, LLC at http://Fletch911.com