For more than a decade, there has been a push to upgrade the country’s 911 call centers from analog- to digital-based systems, which would allow callers to send and receive text messages, videos, geolocation, and other data to and from emergency dispatchers. Progress on this has been slow, but could receive a major boost under the latest version of the House infrastructure bill. The $1.75 trillion Build Back Better reconciliation bill, released Oct. 28, would include some $500 million in funding to digitalize emergency call systems—transforming them into what’s referred to as “Next Generation 911.” At a Nov. 2 House Homeland Security Committee hearing on emergency communications, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) assistant director Billy Bob Brown Jr. touted the benefits of Next Generation 911—including “the ability to respond to 911 requests faster and with greater accuracy, greater situational awareness, greater resilience, and with more consistent quality.” “Furthermore, interconnectivity …