The article below was featured in The Call, The Official Publication of NENA: The 9-1-1 Association, Issue No. 53
ASAP Service is being leveraged by emergency communications centers to streamline response to alarm notifications, with eye-opening results — and it’s still evolving
Two minutes. One-hundred-twenty seconds. There’s not a lot that can be accomplished in that short amount of time. You could maybe brush your teeth, download a movie or two, or delete your browsing history — even scrambling an egg takes more time. But in the world of emergency response, two minutes can mean the difference between life and death.
Fortunately, an easy way exists to shave an average of two minutes from certain calls that reach emergency communications centers (ECCs): ASAP Service. It was developed by The Monitoring Association (TMA) to streamline how centers react to calls generated by alarm-monitoring companies.
What It Is, What It Does
A good story always starts at the beginning. In this case, that means 2011, when the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) was launched. It was developed by TMA in collaboration with the Association of Public-Safety A BETTER Communications Officials (APCO), the public-safety sector, and the alarm-monitoring community. The protocol’s purpose is to address the large number of alarm notifications generated by commercial and residential systems that typically reach ECCs via 10-digit, nonemergency administrative telephone lines.
It is estimated that about 48 million alarm notifications reach ECCs annually and it’s problematic when they do for several reasons. The most vexing issue is that ECC telecommunicators must handle several voice calls to and from alarm-monitoring personnel — often as many as five calls, which sometimes added as much as eight minutes to the response timeline — to capture the information they need to dispatch the appropriate emergency response. Clearly this is a process that not only is time consuming but is also prone to errors.
Another problem is that alarm notifications require the attention of telecommunicators even though most of them do not involve actual emergencies. While telecommunicators are handling administrative-line phone calls, calls that arrive via the 911 system involving actual emergencies often get stuck in queues, which creates response delays. Moreover, alarm notifications significantly contribute to telecommunicator workloads, which are already are incredibly challenging given that 9-1-1 systems nationwide handle about 240 million emergency calls for service annually, according to the National Emergency Number Association (NENA).
TMA’s approach to resolving these challenges was to develop ASAP Service. The solution is built on the ASAP standard, as well as TMA’s Alarm Verification Scoring standard (AVS-01), with both accredited by the American National Standards Institute. AVS-01 identifies five scoring levels to help telecommunicators prioritize the severity of an intrusion-alarm notification, which speeds dispatch of the most appropriate response. The scoring levels are as follows:
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Level 0: No call for service
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Level 1: Call for service with limited information
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Level 2: Call for service with confirmed or highly probable human presence with unknown intent
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Level 3: Call for service with confirmed threat to property
- Level 4: Call for service with confirmed threat to life
“RARELY DOES THE PUBLIC-SAFETY SECTORENCOUNTER A DECISION THAT IS A NO-BRAINER, BUT IMPLEMENTING ASAP SERVICE IS ONEOF THEM. I URGE EVERY ECC TO DO SO AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”
-KARI MORRISSEY, ANOKA COUNTY (MINN.) EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
The idea behind AVS-01 is that by helping telecommunicators prioritize alarm notifications, precious time will be saved, and in turn, more lives and property will be saved.
With ASAP Service in place, alarm notifications are delivered automatically and digitally to the ECC’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, with all information needed by telecommunicators to dispatch the appropriate emergency response. Again, this saves about two minutes on average per call, a significant amount of time during emergencies when lives are at stake and every second matters. And when alarm-generated traffic is reduced, telecommunicators can spend more time focusing on 9-1-1 calls — and sometimes even find time for a moment of decompression between them. Together these benefits represent a win-win for ECCs and their personnel.
Even though its penetration into ECCs is nascent at this juncture — approximately 160 centers have implemented the solution as of this writing, though additional ECCs are expected to go live by the end of 2025 — ASAP Service already is having a profound impact on ECCs from coast to coast. One of those centers is in Anoka, Minn. In the spring, I participated in a webinar with Kari Morrissey, director of Anoka County’s emergency communications. According to Morrissey, ASAP Service is saving the county’s telecommunicators more than 30 hours each month.
“Rarely does the public-safety sector encounter a decision that is a no-brainer — but implementing ASAP Service is one of them,” Morrissey said during the webinar. “I urge every ECC to do so as soon as possible.”
Another example of ASAP Service’s impact can be found at the ECC operated by the city of Riverside, Calif. The center handles emergency calls and dispatches law enforcement, fire/rescue, and emergency medical response. In 2024, the center handled more than 756,000 calls for service. Given the large call volume, officials sought a way to lessen the impact of alarm notifications, eventually deciding to implement ASAP Service for law enforcement-related notifications.
The results have been eye-opening, according to Michelle Brandt, the city’s police/fire communications manager. Last year, 12,231 alarm notifications were delivered directly to the center’s CAD system via ASAP Service, dramatically reducing the number of manual phone calls between telecommunicators and alarm-monitoring-center personnel. Based on the metric of two minutes saved per call, ASAP Service saved the center’s telecommunicators about 408 hours in 2024, or 34 hours each month.
“The streamlined call-handling enabled our telecommunicators to focus more on priority 9-1-1 emergencies, which was especially beneficial during periods of high call volume,” Brandt said. “ASAP Service has been a valuable tool for our center, and I’m surprised that more agencies haven’t adopted it.”
New Wrinkles
Sooner or later, everything evolves. Usually, the evolution is driven by necessity — adapt or die. But sometimes it stems from a desire to build a better mousetrap.
Initially, ECCs needed a connection to Nlets (International Justice and Public Safety Network) through their state’s criminal justice message switch to access ASAP Service. This posed a challenge because some states have not yet developed an ASAP interface, nor have they extended timelines for processing connectivity requests.
ASAP Service Key Benefits
- Eliminates manual processes - Reduces the volume of 10-digit administrative phone calls from alarm-monitoring centers.
- Faster response times - Significantly reduces alarm processing time, accelerating emergency response and improving outcomes.
- Error-free communication - Eliminates transcription errors and miscommunication common with voice calls between ECCs and alarm-monitoring centers.
- Reduced telecommunicator stress - Lightens the workload for ECC personnel by minimizing incoming call volumes.
- Standards-based accuracy - ASAP Service is built on two American National Standards Institute (ANSI) protocols, ASAP for electronic data transmission, and AVS-01 for standardized threat-level communication. Soon, AVS-01 will be augmented by ATN-01.
Alarm Companies Supporting ASAP Service
ADT, Affiliated Monitoring, Alarm Detection Systems, Inc., Alert 360, ASI-Allstate Security Industries, Inc., Avantguard, a Becklar Company, Bay Alarm, Brinks Security, Cen-Signal, CentraAlarm Monitoring Service, CMS, COPS Monitoring, CPI Security, Doyle Security, Dynamark Monitoring, Emergency24, ESC Central, Everon, Guardian Protection, Holmes Security, Johnson Controls, National Monitoring Center, Northwest Alarm Monitoring, Per Mar, Quick Response Monitoring, Rapid Response Monitoring, Securitas, Security Central, Stanley Security, UCC, Vector Security, Vivint, Washington Alarm, and Wegmans
To address this, TMA announced in July 2025 that ASAP Service now is accessible via the secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud.
This truly is a game changer because hosting within the AWS GovCloud will streamline and shorten implementations dramatically. Other advantages include:
- Scalability and reliability — GovCloud supports large-scale deployments and growth, positioning ASAP Service for widespread national adoption.
- Trust and transparency — GovCloud’s credibility helps overcome longstanding concerns about data security and access controls.
- Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) compliance — Ensures that the platform meets federal security standards for handling criminal-justice information.
Just as exciting is TMA’s soon-to-be-released Active Threat Detection (ATN-01) scoring standard, which builds upon AVS-01. While AVS-01 is focused on notifications generated by commercial and residential alarm systems, ATN-01 expands the scope to school panic alarms, gunshot-detection systems, mass-notification platforms, Internet-of-Things (IoT) safety sensors, and more. Together, ATN-01 and AVS-01 promise to improve emergency-response speed and outcomes dramatically.
TMA expects the standards-development process for ATN-01 to be completed by the end of 2025.
Conclusion
ASAP Service represents a transformative advancement in emergency communications. By automating the transfer of alarm notifications directly and digitally into ECC computer-aided dispatch systems, it eliminates the inefficiencies of manual call handling, saving an average of two minutes per incident — time that literally can mean the difference between life and death. Supported by proven results, the benefits of ASAP Service are clear: faster response, reduced workload, improved focus on true emergencies, and enhanced telecommunicator well-being.
The recent shift to AWS GovCloud removes previous barriers to adoption, ensuring scalability, reliability, and compliance with federal security standards. These innovations position ASAP Service not only as a “no-brainer” decision for ECCs but also as a cornerstone for the future of emergency response — one that enhances operational efficiency, protects property, and most importantly, saves lives.
Karen Carlson is vice president and general manager of Mission Critical Partner’s Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP)program, which is supporting implementations of the solution nationwide. Email her at KarenCarlson@asap911.org.
