[*] voip911

John Lange john.lange at open-it.ca
Mon Oct 17 23:55:42 CDT 2005


On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 15:01 -0600, Dean Jones wrote:
> This is my first post here, so I hope it goes through...
> 
> My argument against any 'deadline' of having to get e911 working would be to
> use cell phones as an example.  My current cell has GPS, but my wife's does
> not.  If she is in the country and can't speak, then makes an e911 call and
> it is only picked up by one tower, there's NO WAY for the e911 operator (or
> cell provider) to triangulate the location of that caller with only 1
> tower's signal strength.  Basically, there's no way for them to find her.
> There's no difference in an ATA placing the same call from wherever it is
> currently located.  The closest they could come is to look up the IP and
> contact the ISP to get a location.  So tell me, why does VoIP have to fix
> this problem when VoIP has only been around for a few years as compared to
> cell phones who have been around for about 2 decades?

Just for your information, this is actually one of the reasons the CRTC
is citing as to why they MUST regulate VoIP 911. Cell companies were not
forced to provided E911 on any kind of deadline and as a result they
have never done it.

The CRTC has made it clear that they won't accept a repeat of the cell
phone situation.

Please note that I'm about to debunk your suggestions below only as a
way to inform you about the CRTC process. But first I want to stress its
NOT because they aren't good ideas! They are perfectly good ideas but
they won't work for the reasons I'm going to explain which are mostly
political but also for some technical reasons.

> Now, argument aside, my solution to the problem involves the ISPs

Stop right there. ISPs aren't regulated by the CRTC so anything that
involves them doing anything won't work. They'll just say "no way" or
"give us XX million dollars and we'll study it".

>  who give
> out the IPs.  If the IP and date/time of the 911 call are recorded at the
> e911 location, then the ISP can be looked up and contacted.  The ISP can
> provide the location at the time of the call for that IP.

Problem #2, as incredible as it may seem, 911 service providers (known
as PSAPs or Public Safety Access Points) are also not regulated by the
CRTC. The CRTC regulates only how telcos handle 911, not the PSAPs
themselves. So again, what you are suggesting above requires the PSAPs
to do something (read: "spend money") and most of them have already made
it crystal clear they will reject anything that requires even the
slightest cost to them.

> Going one step further, all ISPs can set up an auto-registering system,
> where all information of the IP/Locations is auto-updated on a central
> database system when an IP changes, and that database could be accessed (via
> secure means) by all e911 personnel 24/7/365.  Then the system becomes
> automated (and faster) and won't incur any costs to the ISPs who otherwise
> would have to have someone available 24/7/365 to accept the e911 call to
> look up the information.  Basically, by the time this is done it is just as
> fast and automated as the current PSTN e911 service.

Lets just assume for a moment that the CRTC could force the ISPs and the
PSAPs to play along and examine this purely from a technical
perspective.

- How do you send the call to right PSAP in the first place?

There are around 26 different PSAPs in Canada. For example there are 2
PSAPs in Manitoba. Winnipeg, serving Winnipeg, and Brandon serving the
rest of Manitoba that has 911 access (side note: there are still quite a
few places that do NOT have 911 at all).

So here is a quick example to illustrate the problem: Our company
connects its calls to the regular phone system (PSTN) here in Winnipeg.
If a customer has their VoIP device in Brandon and dials 911 how do we
route the call?

Even assuming their ISP tells us they are in Brandon (which they have no
way of doing and would never do), we have no possible way of contacting
the Brandon PSAP. There is no method of reaching PSAPs outside your
area. In most cases they do not have regular phone numbers.

- Assuming we could figure out the IP was in Brandon and route the call
the Brandon PSAP, how do you transmit the IP address of the subscriber
to the PSAP?

Keep in mind PSAPs are not connected to the internet, but even if they
were, how do you send it? email?

- Assuming the got the IP address somehow, where and how do they look it
up?

- Who pays for and administrates the central database infrastructure you
are talking about and who pays to have the custom application created to
look up IP addresses?

- Who pays to train the operators on the new software?

- ISPs would all have to have a way to tie the physical location of
users to an IP address. This is likely possible for DSL and Cable
customers but is impossible for dialup, wireless, and a fairly large
segment of Internet users. VoIP users on a cooperate VPN are another
example.

----
Now take every thing above and think about how complicated it gets when
the customer is visiting Florida with their VoIP device. Or Tokyo?

> Any argument as to a single building with the same IP for multiple ATAs can
> be dismissed by comparing it to the current PSTN e911 situation.  Many
> buildings do their own phone systems and any particular extension on their
> PSTN is not recorded with the e911 services, so the best the e911 operator
> can get is the building's address, not the exact room.

Exactly correct but for some reason nobody cared about that until VoIP
came along. But this reveals how the game is played. Since VoIP is a
real threat to telcos they are conspiring with their partners ( the
PSAPs) to force this kind of regulation on VoIP to increase its cost and
make it less attractive.

> Sounds like a good solution to me.

Actually you are not far off from the ideal solution. The only real way
to solve this is to VoIP enable the PSAPs so VoIP providers can route
calls to them directly (using SIP for example).

"But I thought you said the PSAPs won't do anything?" I hear you
saying... True. But there is a way to have it done which won't cost the
PSAPs anything and won't change they way they do things today (i.e.
little or no cost to them).

Its too much to go into here but there are viable solutions similar to
what you have proposed but they don't involve the ISPs.

I'll keep the group updated from time to time on whats going on at the
CRTC with regard to 911.

-- 
John Lange
OpenIT ltd. www.Open-IT.ca (204) 885 0872
VoIP, Web services, Linux Consulting, Server Co-Location

> Dean
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-bounces at muug.mb.ca [mailto:asterisk-bounces at muug.mb.ca] On
> Behalf Of LES.NET (1996) INC.
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 7:29 AM
> To: Asterisk Open Source PBX SIG
> Subject: Re: [*] voip911
> 
> It is an interesting idea, and will probably be effective to some degree.
> 
> However, I would really question someone who would drag along an ATA on a
> road-trip, and truely expect to get results from calling 911 from
> "wherever they are"
> 
> Les.
> > I ran across an interesting blog entry regarding at&t and it's proposed
> > 911 voip proposed solution.
> >
> >
> http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20051011ATTHas911VoIPFix.ht
> ml
> > link was from this site:
> > http://www.directionsmag.com/
> >
> > And how many people plan on remembering to identify where  you're at, or
> > for that matter how many would voluntarily do so ...
> >
> > Dan.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Asterisk mailing list
> > Asterisk at muug.mb.ca
> > http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/asterisk
> >
> 
> 




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