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NG9-1-1 ICE - Industry Collaboration Events

ICE 2 
 
 
 
 

NENA is dedicated to ensuring that all of the goals of NG9-1-1, both technical and non-technical, are met. NENA views a Certification and Accreditation program as a critical component to accomplishing standards based NG9-1-1. Over the past year, NENA has reached out to all industry stakeholders and has received unanimous support for their proposed role in the creation and implementation of such a  program. With the backing of the industry, both commercial and governmental entities, NENA is stepping up to lead the effort.

While NENA is playing a central role in the creation of the program, it is our intent to include all stakeholder groups and we are open to partnering with other industry organizations in the creation and implementation of this C&A program.
 
Based on feedback from a broad cross section of stakeholders, NENA determined that the best first step in supporting vendors and buyers of NG9-1-1 products is the development and execution of an event where developers of NG9-1-1 products can test the interoperability between their products and those of other vendor’s products. These NG9-1-1 Industry Collaboration Events (ICE) help vendors test and validate their implementation of NG9-1-1 functional elements called for in the NENA standards in an open, collaborative, and supportive forum.
 
To oversee the ICE program, a Steering Committee was formed. The ICE Steering Committee established two other committees; the ICE1 Planning Committee and the ICE Data Gathering and Reporting Committee. Information about all three committes can be found below or at Committee members and tasks. The first ICE was held on November 3, 4, and 5, 2009, in College Station, Texas, at Texas A&M University.  An information package was developed that provides additional details of the event. A summary report of the results of the event has also been released.
 

More information:

  • Ray Paddock – NENA NG9-1-1 Certification and Accreditation Program Manager - 303.495.3519
  • Roger Hixson – NENA Technical Issues Director - 614.442.9110
  • Rick Jones – NENA Operations Issues Director - 815.519.7841

 

 

DocumentSize
Initial NG9-1-1 Industry Collaboration Event Overview.pdf2 MB
NG9-1-1 ICE Committees

NG9-1-1 ICE - Steering Committee

The Steering committee is charged with planning and executing a series Industry Collaboration Events in support of the overall NENA NG9-1-1(?) Project. This body deals primarily with setting the direction and expectations for the events. It is composed of representatives of all major stakeholder groups. It is empowered to create committees as it sees fit.

  • Nate Wilcox, Chair
    Next Gen Partner commercial members
  • Norm Forshee, Vice Chair
    Next Gen Partner users
  • Paul Mallett
    Next Gen Partner users and NASNA
  • Terry McLarty
    Next Gen Partner commercial members
  • Devery Thumann
    Next Gen Partner commercial members
  • Bill Mertka - 9IA
  • Dick Dickinson - 9IA
  • Roger Hixson - NENA Staff
  • Rick Jones - NENA Staff
  • Mike Vislocky
    NENA Technical Committee
  • Pete Eggimann
    NENA Operations Committee
  • Kathy McMahon-Ruscitto - APCO
  • John Chiaramonte - National 9-1-1 Program Office
    National 9-1-1 Program Office
  • Ron Bloom – NENA Board Liaison
  • Ray Paddock – Secretary to the committee

The most important topics the Steering Committee deals with include the following:

  1. What will be tested??
    1. Using i3 as a “roadmap”, how should the overall architecture be segmented?
    2. What aspects of NG 9-1-1 are most important to test?
    3. Are the underlying standards in place to test? 
    4. Do the other characteristics of the segments being focused on lend themselves to an Interoperability event?
  2. How will testing be done?
    1. Will all the vendors come together in one place at one time or will this be a virtual event?
    2. What will the test scripts look like?
    3. What information/results will be collected?
  3. What information will be released, to whom, and in what format?
    1. What information should be released?
    2. Who will have access to the results?
    3. What form/format should the results take?
  4. When will the events take place?
    1. What is the schedule?
  5. Who will participate?
    1. How will the industry be engaged?
    2. What agreements will participants need to sign?
    3. How will participants be selected?

 

NG9-1-1 ICE - Event Planning Committee

This committee is asked to develop the test plan for the first event. The plan should include what functional elements from the NG9-1-1(?) i3 architecture are to be tested and how they will be tested.

  • Bill Mertka – RedSky, Chair
  • Andrea Forte – Emergent Communications
  • Annie Benitez Pelaez – Acme Packet
  • Ben Carnes - DSS
  • Craig Dollar – Emergency CallWorx
  • Dan Mongrain - Plant/CML
  • Doug Stuard – Andrew
  • Guy Churchouse - Revcord
  • Jason Horning – BullBerry Systems
  • Jim Allocco - Spectracom
  • John Gaffney – Avaya
  • John Brosowsky – Geo-Comm
  • Justin McAteer - Emergency CallWorx
  • Kevin Haynie - microDATA
  • Matt Clark – microDATA
  • Michael Smith – DSS
  • Mike Tedder – Emergent Communications
  • Ray Vilis - Solacom
  • Terry Eby – NG-911 Inc.
  • Terry McLarty - Interact
  • Walt Magnussen – Texas A&M University
  • Will Hickey – Spectracom
  • Ray Paddock – Secretary to the committee

 Guidance to this committee from the Steering Committee includes the following:

  1. The first order of business for this committee is to develop a planning timeline that results in setting a target date for the event. The Steering Committee anticipates that the target date will not be later than October 2009.   The plan should be shared with the Steering Committee.
  2. It is suggested that time be allocated to allow companies to test with each other one-on-one.
  3. Some time should be dedicated to more complex testing involving multiple functional elements from multiple vendors.
  4. An ‘inventory” of what functional elements will be available for testing from which vendors should be developed. If key functional elements are missing, TAMU has access to the functional elements that were used in the US DoT PoC. These elements can be used to fill in any gaps.
  5. A master schedule should be put in place to guide the overall event.
  6. Some data from the event will be collected. Of particular importance to the Steering Committee relates to the feedback for the NENA Tech Committees.   See the charter of Data Gathering and Reporting Committee for details. This committee needs to incorporate data collection into their plans.
  7. The testing done at this event will not have a heavy emphasis on security or performance. However, future events will include these dimensions. It is highly desirable to include so testing of security and performance can prepare us for future events.

This event is only the first in a series. We need feedback from this committee after the event to improve future events. A written report covering recommendations for future events is important.

 

NG9-1-1 ICE - Data Collection & Reporting Committee

This committee is asked to determine what data should be gathered to support the vendors and the ongoing development of standards and other aspects of NG9-1-1(?). Note that we are not using the term “Results” in this committee name.

  • Devery Thumann – Motorola, Chair
  • Brian Rosen – NeuStar
  • Kathy McMahon-Ruscitto - APCO
  • Ray Paddock – Secretary to the committee
Guidance to this committee from the Steering Committee includes the following:
  1. No data should be gathered that conflicts with item 2 in the general guidance above.
     
  2. This event is not to be used for marketing or advertising purposes. This is a technical event. NENA will, however, be recognizing participation in the event.
    1. If data is gathered that has the potential to conflict with this, a plan must be developed for protecting the data.
  3. For feedback to the NENA Tech Committees, data should be gathered to answer the following questions:
    1. Which standards are clear and complete and limit unintended or unproductive interpretation to a minimum?
    2. Which standards are too loose and allowed for excessive interpretation?
    3. Which standards are overly restrictive?
    4. Which standards are missing?
  4. A plan for how the data is to be captured needs to be developed. Options to consider include the following:
    1. Requesting that participants in each test self report data.
    2. Having a member or appointee from this committee observe each test and record data
  5. Some type of form should be developed that can be used to capture the data.

This event is only the first in a series. We need feedback from this committee after the event to improve future events. A written report covering recommendations for future events is important.