[asterisk-biz] VoIP 9-1-1 failure - don't let it happen to you

[Trevor Peirce]

Drew Gibson wrote:
> This call was one of the marginal cases and this is the question I was 
> trying to ask. As with most emergencies, this situation was created by 
> a combination of failures.
>
> Rightly or wrongly the current situation is that...
>
> 1. The customer expects the Telco to take care of 911 entirely, as 
> they always have in the past.
Indeed.  The VoIP provider should take a more proactive role to ensure 
the customer understands that 911 address != billing address.  First, 
the regulations require periodic reminders be sent to the customer to 
keep their address current.  Second, it would be good practice for all 
providers to offer to update 911 address at the same time when they are 
processing a billing address update.
> 2. The VoIP provider expects the customer to update their 911 address, 
> as the provider cannot strictly control location (except the cable 
> providers such as Shaw Cable, through which the ambulance was 
> correctly dispatched)
As above.  Cable companies have a benefit that they attach their device 
to your house so it cannot be moved without them coming out and doing it 
for you.  Thus, they are allowed to route directly to a PSAP and use 
E911.  VoIP is not allowed to do this per CRTC regulations.
> I'll leave it to the lawyers to apportion blame but, in the mean time, 
> how is this disconnect being addressed by VoIP and 911 service providers?
In my opinion the address not being updated is a very small factor of 
the failure at hand.  The bigger failure is the lack of communication to 
verify the caller's address or let them speak to the PSAP directly.  If 
the caller did speak to the PSAP, or if the caller told the person on 
the phone that the old address was correct, then the point of failure 
shifts from the VoIP provider/911 termination partner to the caller.  
However, it is my understanding that the address was not verified with 
the caller and that the caller never spoke to the PSAP, and that is why 
this happened.

The current implemented system in Canada has room for improvement, but 
the processes required by law does work fine and requires several stages 
that would have prevented this failure if they had been followed by all 
involved parties.  It will be interesting to find out the details of 
what exactly went wrong.

Because of this failure, here is today's article recommending against 
VoIP services: 
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/05/05/rethinking-voip.htm