[Asterisk-biz] Vonage bows to 911 pressure

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Thu, 5 May 2005 bclem at im-online.net wrote:

> This is something I've been wondering about. What does this mean for the
> small US based VOIP providers? We don't have the cash or the resources
> to partner with the verizon's of the world in order to provide E911
> Services.
> If the ruling comes down, doesn't this essentially kill all of us small
> providers? This also helps the bigger boys too I would assume. Thus
> unfairly providing advantage to them. We could bring a class action
> lawsuit if it came down to it.
> 
> What do you guys thing of all this mess and how it affects us?
Instead of screaming "sky is falling", how about actually *doing*
something about e911? Seriously, your users *need* it. You don't need to
partner with all the "verizons", you only need to partner with someone who
can deliver calls to 911 for you.

There are three parts to have working e911 solution: 

1) Knowing which PSAP to deliver calls to. This is easier if your customer
is at fixed location, otherwise, you need to have customer provide you
with their location and pay someone (Intrado provides this) to translate
physical address to the PSAP.

2) Delivering calls to PSAP: Again, this is easier if you provide service
in just a single LATA. In that case, the telco from whom you buy PRIs will
deliver calls to the selective router, and selective router will route
call to the correct PSAP based on the ANI passed by you.

If you provide nationwide service, it is more complicated, as in general, 
PSAPs don't have a callable "10-digit number" (that you can call like a 
regular number on PSTN), and you have to deliver calls to the correct 
selective router. However, there's push by NENA and Intrado to make PSAPs 
have a "10-digit number" that would be answered 24/7 by the 911 calltakers 
(just like the selective router number). So this may change. 

In order to deliver calls to selective router, you should first inquire
with whoever provides you with the origination service. *they* certainly
have LATA presence and can deliver the calls to it. Now, your carrier may
or may not provide this service, but its not rocket science, and if push
comes to shove, everyone obviously will do this.

3) Assume that you managed to deliver call to the correct PSAP. Now,
call-takers need to find the location of the caller. The database of
locations is called "PS/ALI" (from the old "private switch/automatic
location identification" that was used so companies with large pbxs could
tell the emergency responders exact location (building/floor) of a given
phone number). Generally, these databases are maintained as a service by
the ILEC. Sometimes, you can contract with ILEC directly to get access to
the local database, more often, you will probably want to work through
Intrado to update the records. It ain't cheap, but again, it is not rocket
science.

The only class suits you should be thinking about are suits filed by your
customers' estate when someone dies because you didn't provide e911
service.

Yes, doing proper telephony is hard. Yes, maybe smallest shops (aka a guy
with cable modem and asterisk at home) will be unable to compete. But
frankly, I think its a good thing for the industry.

Alex Pilosov    | DSL, Colocation, Hosting Services
President       | alex at pilosoft.com    877-PILOSOFT x601
Pilosoft, Inc.  | http://www.pilosoft.com