alifornia settled on a design that no other state had implemented: a regionalized approach that divided the massive state into four sectors. Between 2019 and 2025, California paid four technology companies over $450 million to build out its Next Generation 911 system, a more advanced emergency communication tool that would provide dispatchers with enhanced location services and other ways for the public to communicate with first responders operators. But when the time came to turn that system on, it didn't work.