[Asterisk-Users] Testing UK emergency dialing and LCR.

[Storer, Darren]

Hi Kevin,

KW> By the way, it's useful to map 911 and 112 onto your 999
KW> route for the benefit of foreigners who don't know any better.

Your point about 112 is very useful but slightly misguided; although the UK
has used 999, nationally since 1938, (the world's first single number access
for emergency services) 112 was mandated for pan European use from 1992
onwards. 112 is *not* for "foreigners who don't know any better", it's for
everyone in the EU to learn so that when you are anywhere in the EU you
stand a fighting chance of getting hold of emergency help at the first
attempt. 999 will continue to run in parallel with 112 for many years to
come but 112 should be taught to children and adults alike as the universal
number for emergency services. Some UK Telcos also provided support for 911
for a little while but I believe that this was officially frowned upon; I'm
not sure what the policy is now.

W> As another thing, what is the correct method when using least cost
W> routing... If you have a branch office that has no outside line
W> connectivity directly routing its calls over IP to HQ the other end of
W> the country when you dial 999 it gets handled by the local call center
W> to your HQ rather than the branch office.

It became apparent, back in 1999, when I was part of a team providing
consultancy to a UK Telco for VoIP VPN launch, that a POTS line would be
required locally at each branch office for power-fail compliance and to
ensure that the OACs (Operator Assistance Centres) did not get confused
about which location the emergency call was originated from. We discussed
spoofing the branch office CLI "in network" at an SS7 level but that idea
was shelved as there would have to have been an associated POTS line entry
in the OAC database in the first place. At that time Cisco CPE had no way of
utilising the power-fail POTS lines so a red 'phone was provided for use on
each floor of the branch offices that only had VoIP VPN telephony.

HTH

Darren
--
Comgate
Telco>Internet<Broadcast

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Kevin Walsh
Sent: 19 June 2004 02:56
To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Testing UK emergency dialing and LCR.


Wayne [Wayne at planetWayne.com] wrote:
> Just wondering how people test your emergency dialing in the UK.
> Obviously you need to dial the 999 for emergency services, but am a bit
> unsure if this would go down too well with the operator with a 'sorry
> just testing' call. (you do all /test/ your emergency dialing dont
> you!?:-) )
>
I tend to test by unplugging the phone line and dialling 999.
You can watch the log and see that the call attempted to route
to the POTS line.  You can then dial a "real" POTS number and
watch the same route succeed.

The emergency services get very upset if you call them to test,
unless you've arranged to do so in advance and have an allotted
time slot.

You're right though; you can't be absolutely sure that the 999
route will work until you test it with a real call.  Just start
a fire before you call.  That'll probably work. :-)

>
> As another thing, what is the correct method when using least cost
> routing... If you have a branch office that has no outside line
> connectivity directly routing its calls over IP to HQ the other end of
> the country when you dial 999 it gets handled by the local call center
> to your HQ rather than the branch office.
>
If you need emergency services access in your branch office then
you should get a single line into that office.  The emergency
services tend to rush to the destination they "know" is correct for
that phone number.

By the way, it's useful to map 911 and 112 onto your 999 route
for the benefit of foreigners who don't know any better.

--
   _/   _/  _/_/_/_/  _/    _/  _/_/_/  _/    _/
  _/_/_/   _/_/      _/    _/    _/    _/_/  _/   K e v i n   W a l s h
 _/ _/    _/          _/ _/     _/    _/  _/_/    kevin at cursor.biz
_/   _/  _/_/_/_/      _/    _/_/_/  _/    _/

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