We found a great private sector partner in IXP Corporation. We sat down and hammered out a way to significantly improve our ability to respond and improve public safety services.

The partnership works great between Johns Creek, Sandy Springs, and IXP. We’ve seen improved call-taking responsiveness, we’ve got citizens who are now able to get through to 911, and we’ve gotten really good positive feedback from the community.

The partnership (ChatComm) is working very well. We formed our own PSAP we call ChatComm. There’s not many people who have done this. Especially outsourcing. It’s completely outsourced. There are no government employees answering 911 emergency calls; they are all employees of a public sector corporation.

When we walk into a room here we automatically have ‘situational awareness of everything that’s going on not only in our community but in Johns Creek, not only with police, but with fire and EMS as well.

We know where our resources are. We know how to to deploy them. and we can do it much more effectively and muck more quickly.

If you develop partnerships between various communities, then when a major event occurs, we also have the resources not only our immediate resources but we have those collaborative resources as well, which increases our operational capacity.

In the past you’d have to call the other departments and vice versa trying to get resources from one dept. to the other. Now you have the 911 center . . . they can actually start making those calls because they know what each city has for resource availability. It’s just kinda seamless – you just move those resources over.

Anytime you can bring something that’s new and state of the art into the community without raising taxes and not hitting the city loaded, that’s always welcome. But when you do something to improve it on that same level it’s even more widely accepted. It’s a win-win.

I know that several people have used or called it (ChatComm) and it’s instantaneous . . . the response is instantaneous. and we’ve invited our fire fighters and policeman to several events that the chamber has hosted with several of the other non-profits in the city. They are very visible in the community. They are anxious to serve. It’s just been incredible.

On behalf of the CALEA staff, please accept our appreciation for the cooperation of your Deputy Director of Operations and staff. It was a pleasure working with them. Your team was very professional, flexible, and responsive to suggestions for anything we needed.

Your team takes pride and ownership in their assignments and are dedicated to doing it correctly.

Two years ago we decided to create a CCTV system on campus. We wanted to build out a full blown system, but do it in phases. We brought in IXP and they introduced us to IBM Analytics.

The best example they gave which was easy for us to wrap our heads around was NYC where they were using it to fight terrorism.

We were really blown away at the technology and what it could do.