The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) first identified the need for NG911 in 2000, and started development actions in 2003, and is nearing full definition and standards for NG911.
[citation needed] Since 2006, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) in the United States and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in Canada have been leading their respective initiatives, which include research and development projects aimed at advancing NG911.
[6] NENA's NG911 Project began in 2003 and continues to an ultimate goal of establishing national NG911 architecture and operations standards, and implementation plans to accomplish advanced 911 systems and services.
The stated goal of a related USDOT project is: "To enable the general public to make a 911 “call” (any real-time communication – voice, text, or video) from any wired, wireless, or IP-based device, and allow the emergency services community to take advantage of advanced call delivery and other functions through new internetworking technologies based on open standards.
"[7] The project is aimed at supporting establishment of a national architecture for an NG911 system that would meet these goals, and to create a transition plan for NG911.
The FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Architecture (Task Force or TFOPA) has been directed to study and report findings and recommendations on structure and architecture in order to determine whether additional consolidation of PSAP infrastructure and architecture improvements would promote greater efficiency of operations, safety of life, and cost containment, while retaining needed integration with local first responder dispatch and support.
The NG911 vision relies on 911 specific application functionality on an Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet) to deliver voice, video, text and data "calls" to the PSAP.
In the Next Generation 911 environment, the public will be able to make voice, text, or video emergency "calls" from any communications device via Internet Protocol-based networks.
The new infrastructure envisioned by the NG911 project will support national internetworking of 911 services, as well as transfer of emergency calls to other PSAPs—including any accompanying data.
For the PSAP to be able to send out automatic notifications to all wireless devices currently operating in the area of an emergency, a similar routing mechanism must exist in the opposite (outgoing) direction.
[2] If the existing wireless communications system is Project 25 compliant, little or no change will be required to the transmit/receive equipment itself, since it already supports transmission of any type of data.