Americans depend on the existing Emergency Communications Systems (ECS) to save lives, either via 911 calls to ambulance, police and fire services or via the broadcast Emergency Alert System. The existing Emergency Communications Systems (ECS) infrastructure is becoming increasingly outdated due to the migration of voice and video services to Internet-based technologies. The Network Slicing for Emergency Communications (NSEC) is a prototype US Ignite demonstration project that will utilize GENI slices to create a demonstration system of a robust, reliable, and scalable alternative to existing ECS. This demonstration will use network slicing to provide priority and dedicated bandwidth and cloud services to simplify operations, create sustainability and maintain extensibility. The GENI slicing framework will also provide isolation from Denial of Service attacks. The City of Ammon (Bonneville County), Idaho, Albion Telephone Company (ATC), an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) with territories located in Southern Idaho and Northern Utah, and Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) with serving territories throughout Utah will support this effort. This proposed effort will document technical and organizational issues, serve as the initial demonstration of the feasibility, and provide the initial building blocks for an open standard implementation of a next generation ECS.
The project addresses critical needs in emergency communications, a national priority issue; provides a path forward for communities and agencies desiring to address current ECS deficiencies, and provides a small scale transportable system for on-location demonstrations; and establishes an extensible open source ECS capable of supporting continued research and development without affecting current emergency communications systems operations.
