New digital alarm delivery reduces administrative call traffic and allows telecommunicators to focus on incidents requiring human expertise
Knoxville, Tenn. (September 30, 2026) — Knox County Emergency Communications District (Knox 911) is creating more capacity for its telecommunicators by modernizing how security, law enforcement, and fire alarms reach its telecommunicators.
The center recently implemented ASAP Service, a standards-based solution developed by The Monitoring Association (TMA), that automatically delivers alarm notifications automatically and digitally into the emergency communications center’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system.
Located in Knoxville, TN, Knox 911 handles emergency and nonemergency calls and dispatches for eight public safety entities, including the Knoxville Police Department, Knoxville Fire Department, and Knox County Sheriff’s Office. The center receives approximately 21,000 emergency calls each month and a similar number of nonemergency calls, including about 1,800 security and fire alarm alerts.
“ASAP Service has the potential to give our telecommunicators a break from the nonemergency incidents and enable them to spend more time on 911 calls, which obviously are more critical,” said Brad Anders, executive director of Knox 911. “That’s incredibly important.”
Traditionally, alarm-monitoring centers communicate security and fire alarm alerts via an administrative line. Telecommunicators must speak with monitoring-center personnel, capture the necessary information, and manually enter it into CAD before dispatching the appropriate emergency response. According to industry estimates, this process can add two to eight minutes to the response timeline. It also occupies administrative phone lines and creates opportunities for information to be misheard or entered incorrectly.
ASAP Service automatically delivers verified alarm notifications from residential and business alarm systems into an ECC’s CAD system. This eliminates the need for telecommunicators to manually receive and relay alarm information by phone, reducing repetitive exchanges and opportunities for delay or error. Traditional phone-based alarm processing can add two to eight minutes to the response timeline, according to industry estimates.
Knox 911 went live with ASAP Service on July 21, and early results show the shift is already taking hold. Since implementation, ASAP Service delivered 1473 alarm notifications. The additional capacity also may help Knox 911 build upon its strong call-answering performance.
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“We average from 90 percent to 93 percent of emergency calls answered within 15 seconds, but we’re always looking for ways to chip away and make that a bit better,” Anders said. “We believe that ASAP Service will enable us to increase that percentage a touch.”
The Knox 911 deployment marks the first ASAP Service implementation utilizing an application programming interface developed by Octave (formerly Hexagon), the center's CAD system vendor. The interface enables a direct connection between Knox 911's CAD system and ASAP Service, which resides in Amazon Web Services' GovCloud. This approach reduced implementation time by at least 50 percent compared with the traditional method of accessing ASAP Service through Nlets via a state criminal-justice message switch.
Mission Critical Partners, a public sector consulting firm with a long history of supporting Knox 911, facilitated the project and has partnered with TMA to accelerate ASAP Service deployments in ECCs nationwide.
As of go-live, the following alarm-monitoring companies are transmitting alarm notifications via ASAP Service to Knox 911: ADT, Affiliated Monitoring, CPI Security, ESC Central, Everon, Guardian Protection, Johnson Controls, Quick Response, Rapid Response, United Central Control, Vector Security, and Vivint.
Learn more about how TMA's ASAP Service is saving lives every day nationwide at www.ASAP911.org.
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About The Monitoring Association
The Monitoring Association (TMA), formerly the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), is an internationally recognized nonprofit trade association that represents professional monitoring companies, security systems integrators, and providers of products and services to the industry. Incorporated in 1950, TMA represents its members before Congress and regulatory agencies on the local, state and federal levels, and other authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ) over the industry. Learn more online at https://tma.us/about-tma/.
About TMA’s ASAP Service
Launched in 2011 as a public-private partnership, TMA’s Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) Service enables alarm companies to electronically dispatch calls for service directly to emergency communications centers. To improve dispatch accuracy and efficiency, ASAP Service uses American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited protocols developed cooperatively by TMA and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO).
CONTACT:
Julie Howerter, marketing strategist
ASAP Service
815-501-5832