IWCE, organizers of the upcoming critical communications conference at the Las Vegas Conference Center March 30 to April 3, 2020, surveyed over 597 first responders and public safety professionals to benchmark the current technologies they are using and to understand current technological challenges within the industry.
The survey revealed that in the past year:
- 25 percent of first responders have experienced an incident where loss of power affected their ability to do their job
- 43 percent of first responders don’t have enough back-up power to last longer than 24 hours
- 15 percent of first responders reported they have no back-up power system in place
- Only 26 percent of first responders have back up that lasts longer than a week.
Stephanie McCall, Show Director for IWCE, commented: “Perhaps we can sometimes take it for granted that during an emergency, first responders are always available. But if the power goes out, it goes out for first responders often too. While backup power is the usual standard operating procedure, it does not last forever. This can affect their ability to be safe and to keep members of the public safe, and to communicate with each other.”
McCall continued: “As extreme weather incidents are becoming more frequent and we now live in a world where cyber terrorists may find ways to shut down power grids, first responders need to keep abreast of power options, specifically for communications equipment. Utilities need to be fully secure to avoid hack attacks. At IWCE this year we will be covering the technologies, solutions and providing training to first responders to deal with these challenges.”
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