DUG Restructures, Discusses the Future of Monitoring
DICE Corporation, Bay City, Mich., held its 2011 Users Group Conference (DUG ‘11) in Bay City, August 8 -10. There were several changes to the structure of the conference this year as well as new projects.
Two key projects DICE is working on that echoed in conversation throughout the conference were automated PSAP communications and IP networks. Ed Bonifas, president of the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), presented “ASAP to the PSAP,” as the new communications protocol currently used in Houston and Richmond, Va., has been dubbed. “Along the way in trying to figure out how we were going to do this communication, the biggest hurdle we ran into was, how are we going to get the data directly into the PSAP itself. They just weren’t going to let us put Internet lines into their PSAPs; there’s no telling what could come through them or how secure it was.” That’s where the International Justice and Public Safety Network (Nlets), which tie PSAPs across the country together, comes in. “There are 6,000 PSAPs that through state networks and back through Nlets, have got one big network,” Bonifas explained. “It’s trusted, it’s secure and it works.”