Georgia's 911 systems could soon see a multimillion-dollar overhaul

Caleb Groves and Katherine Landergan, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Mar 12, 2025

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ATLANTA — Georgia legislators are pushing for a multimillion-dollar overhaul of the state’s antiquated 911 systems that have struggled to handle the volume of emergency calls from people in crisis.

“This is to address, quite frankly, the struggles that many communities are having with the outdated, and in some cases, dilapidated and just dysfunctional 911 system,” state Rep. Will Wade, R-Dawsonville, sponsor of House Bill 423, said at a committee meeting in February.

Call centers across the state would be encouraged to modernize and speed up 911 emergency systems under the proposal that’s moving through the Legislature. Gov. Brian Kemp signed an amended 2025 budget last week, including about $5.7 million through the end of June to help initiate the adoption of the new technology. That could mark a turning point for areas that have failed to answer 911 calls in a timely manner.

The bill follows an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year that examined millions of calls across metro Atlanta and the surrounding counties and found an alarmingly high number of callers were left waiting for a 911 operator to answer. The problems were linked to aging technology and an exodus of staff who left during the pandemic. Reporters interviewed dozens of people who shared their harrowing stories of waiting on hold, including a southwest Atlanta woman whose family ended up rushing her to the hospital after a bullet sliced through her face when a 911 operator didn’t immediately pick up.

Since the AJC investigation, several call centers have reported improved answer times as they’ve hired more workers and upgraded their systems. Wade’s bill could accelerate that progress through Next Generation 911.

Next Generation 911 is not a company, but rather a type of standards-based technology that allows for many changes, including improved audio, more precise locations from callers, and the ability to share video calls, according to the National Emergency Number Association, a nonprofit organization that focuses on 911 operations and policy issues.

The Georgia Emergency Communications Authority works with 911 and emergency communications throughout the state, setting standards and collecting data. Under HB 423, the authority would be tasked with administering the deployment of Next Generation 911 and upholding industry standards for the technology.

The bill would create three additional positions on the authority’s 15-person board: a cybersecurity expert, a geographic information system expert and the executive director of the Georgia Technology Authority.

Melissa Alterio, executive director of the Cobb County Department of Emergency Communications, said statewide adoption is something that should have happened years ago.

“We’re one of only a very small percentage of states in the country that have had no movement on Next Gen 911,” Alterio said.

As an example of what the technology can do, Alterio pointed to North Carolina’s use of Next Generation 911 during Hurricane Helene last year when several call centers lost service. Those calls were immediately rerouted to operators elsewhere in the state.

“With legacy systems, we have to get that manually forwarded by whoever the telecom company is,” she said.

Wade said the new technology would bring the state’s outdated 911 system up to par with 21st century solutions.

Companies like Uber and Domino’s have more accurate geographic data to pinpoint a customer’s location than emergency response operators in Georgia have to dispatch first responders, Wade said. If the infrastructure isn’t overhauled soon, he fears that the long response times could worsen as the decades-old infrastructure becomes increasingly difficult to repair.

One of the biggest improvements is that a center could share its calls with another 911 call center when it’s overloaded, according to NENA. Technology must be implemented so the other center can answer the call, log it and then send it back to the original call center so they can dispatch first responders.

“Overall, it’s a really incredible change to the country’s aging 911 systems,” said Brandon Abley, chief technology officer for the National Emergency Number Association.

The bill in Georgia comes amid a national effort to modernize the nation’s weak 911 infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission has made rule changes encouraging local governments to upgrade to Next Generation 911, and states are rolling out plans that favor modern internet-based systems as opposed to landline systems.

A patchwork of states have already adopted Next Generation 911 technology, but Georgia hasn’t yet.

There are signs that call centers in Georgia are eager to adopt the new technology. Nearly three-quarters of the counties in Georgia responded to a survey saying they would be interested in upgrading their systems, according to the Georgia Emergency Communications Authority.

HB 423 unanimously passed the House and now awaits action from the Senate.