Cybertelecom :: VoIP 911

Laws

The Wireless Public Safety Act of 1999.

The ENHANCE 911 Act of 2004

47 CFR §§ 9.1-9.3

Legislation

110th Cong

S 428 IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2007

109th Cong

S 1063

Committee Passes VoIP/Public Safety Bill with Stevens Provisions, Senate 4/27/2007

State 911 Suits

Connecticut: Attorney General, DCP Sue Broadband Phone Company For Misrepresenting Its 9-1-1 Emergency Capabilities May 3, 2005

Michigan: Cox Takes Action Against Vonage to Protect Internet Phone Customers April 29, 2005

Texas: Attorney General Abbott Takes Legal Action To Protect Internet Phone Customers, Attorney General 3/22/2005

Texas Attorney General Resolves Lawsuit With Vonage, KCBD 1/3/2007
Vonage Settles Investigation Of 911 Services, North Country Gazette 1/3/2007
"Joyce John, who joined Attorney General Abbott today in his announcement, attempted in vain to reach 9-1-1 dispatchers in February as would-be burglars fired shots through her home and threatened her parents at gunpoint, eventually wounding them. When John hurriedly placed the call from an upstairs room, a voice recording informed her that no emergency access was available from that line. The burglars fled the scene before causing more harm, and the victims survived their injuries. The lawsuit, filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, requests injunctive measures to stop Vonage Holdings Corp. – a broadband phone company based in New Jersey – from misrepresenting the type of emergency telephone service it offers, and the fact that the “911 dialing” feature is not automatically included when a customer signs up for telephone service. The suit seeks $20,000 per violation. "
Texas AG Petition (Complaint)
- See FTC Explanation of Clear and Conspicuous in online advertising
Texas Consumer Alert
911voip.org " 911VoIP.org was formed by four Texas 9-1-1 agencies who recognized the importance of educating the public on the potential limitations of VoIP when making calls to 9-1-1."
Texas Sues Vonage After Crime Victim Unable to Call 911, Washington Post March 23, 2005
Emergency networks warn consumers about Internet phones, Standard Times March 15, 2005
Net Based 911 Fights Puts Lives online USA Today Feb. 28, 2005

Federal Activity

Hearings

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the Future of 9-1-1 Services, Senate Commerce Committee (April 10, 2007)

Hatfield Studies

2006 Hatfield 911 Study (terminated)
- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the Future of 9-1-1 Services, Senate Commerce Committee (April 10, 2007) (addressing FCC termination of Hatfield report, indicating that Senate may come up with funds to complete study - news reports indicate that Hatfield had almost completed the study and it would have only cost ~$1000 for him to complete the report).
- House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecom and the Internet, FCC Oversight Hearing (Mar 14, 2007) (Ch Martin's decision to terminate Dale Hatfields report was criticized)
- Doyle Questions FCC Failure to Address e911 Deficiency, Rep Mike Doyle (Mar 14, 2007) (In 2004, the FCC asked Mr. Dale Hatfield, a respected expert in the field, to study the issue and report his findings to the Commission. Mr. Hatfield presented his tentative results to FCC staff on May 10, 2006. A few days later, he was contacted by Chairman Martin's personal wireless policy advisor and told to halt the study and turn in his hours for payment and premature termination of his contract).
- House grills FCC chairman over Hatfield dismissal, FierceWireless (Mar 19, 2007)
- FCC Cut Study Finding 911 Flaws, USAToday (March 2007) (Hatfield's report says the public never heard about his concerns because the FCC decided to terminate the study a few days later. His report, details of which were presented to FCC staff, was never finished or released.)
A Report on Technical and Operational Issues Impacting The Provision of Wireless Enhanced 911 Services Prepared for the Federal Communications Commission By Dale N. Hatfield Telecommunications Consultant PDF
- "The purpose of this report is to convey the results of an independent inquiry into the technical and operational issues affecting the deployment of wireless Enhanced 911 (“E911”) services in the United States. The inquiry was carried out by the author on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission (“Commission”) over a six month period beginning on April 15, 2002."

Papers

FCC Factsheet: VoIP and 911 Service, FCC 7/8/2005
NCS Technical Bulletin 05-01, VoIP/E911 for NS/EP (March 2005)

FCC Announces Agenda For March 18, 2004 Solutions Summit on 911/E911 Issues Associated With Internet-based Communications Services., FCC 3/11/2004

NENA VoIP/Packet Committee
Nortel Networks Submits VoIP E9-1-1 Proposal to Industry Group, Nortel 4/2/2004
REMARKS OF JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, SOLUTIONS SUMMIT: 911/E911 ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH INTERNET-BASED COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 18, 2004. CMMR, FCC 3/23/2004
Powell: VoIP needs 911, USA Today 2/24/2004
Board worries that Internet telephones clash with 911 systems, DSL Reports 2/24/2004

Papers

Henning Schulzrinne and Knarig Arabshian, Providing Emergency Services in Internet Telephony, n.d

i112 - Emergency Calls on the Internet, Austrian Regulatory Authority Oct. 2005 PDF Slides

Security Threats and Requirements for Emergency Calling, ECRIT 7/26/2005

Emergency Call Information in the Domain Name System, ECRIT 7/26/2005

Requirements for Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies, ECRIT 7/26/2005

Session Initiation Protocol Location Conveyance, ECRIT 7/26/2005

An IRIS Schema for Emergency Service Contact URIs, ECRIT 7/26/2005

VON Coalition, Answering the Call for 911 Emergency Services in an Internet World (Jan. 2005)

p. 8: With traditional E-9-1-1 service, a caller’s location information is retrieved from the ALI Database. However, with nomadic VoIP service, the street address is not available in the ALI Database. The NENA Migratory Team has agreed that I2 solutions will either add Location Information Server functions to the network, or alternately provide a geodetic location address to validate the location of the customer and forward legitimate ALI for a nomadic user.

Presentation IETF 60: A Document Format for Expressing Privacy Preferences for Location Information PPT

Raymond Gass, IP Telephony Support for Emergency Calling Service TIA TSB-146-A bulletin July 2004

Intrado VoIP Public Policy Position Paper

VoIP: Evolution of the PSAP experience
VoIP 9-1-1 Frequently Asked Questions For Public Safety Answering Point Personnel
PSAP ALI Interface Issues: Next Generation Need, Intrado (May 2004). This is a simplified model. The complexities of E911, such as acquiring the location of an individual using a mobile phone, is not relevant for this paper.
VoIP Emergency Calling Services, Intrado (2003)

Henning, Schulzrinne, I2 and I3 - a status summary, April 2004 PPT

NENA Tampa 911 Carleton Smith Senior Systems Engineer Overview PDF slides

Prof. Henning Schulzrinne, 911 services: wireline, wireless and VoIP FCC Solution Summit March 2004

Links

Federal Government
- FCC 911
- Dept of Transportation Next Generation 911
Canadian Government
- CRTC Decision on 9-1-1 Emergency Services for VoIP Service Providers, CRTC 4/5/2005
- Emergency service obligations for local VoIP service providers, CRTC 4/5/2005
NG911 "This project will provide a demonstration to show that the ability for an IP telephone to accurately report its location is feasible and that it is also the only viable method of providing this critical information"
- IP to the PSAP, multimedia
- See related project IETF ECRIT
- NG911 was supported with an NTIA TOP Grant : Proposal : I-911: Deploying Advanced Internet Based Emergency Services PDF
- Mapinfo
  - First Ever Next-Generation E9-1-1 Solution Showcased Today May 26, 2005 (6 months into a 2 year TOP project)
  - May 24 - MapInfo Solutions Help Carriers Providing Landline VoIP Phone Services Meet New 911 Rules from FCC
Dispatch Monthly VoIP & 911
IETF For more detailed information see Notes :: Geolocation :: IETF
- Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies ECRIT ietf-ecrit.org
  - Location-to-URL Mapping Protocol (LUMP), ECRIT 6/29/2005
  - "The group will show how the availability of location data and call routing information at different steps in session setup would enable communication between a user and a relevant emergency response center. Though the term "call routing" is used in this document, it should be understood that some of the mechanisms which will be described might be used to enable other types of media streams. Video and text messaging, for example, might be used to request emergency services."
  - Internet Draft Requirements for Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies May 5, 2005
- IETF GeoPriv Working Group
  - "As more and more resources become available on the Internet, some applications need to acquire geographic location information about certain resources or entities. These applications include navigation, emergency services, management of equipment in the field, and other location-based services.... The primary task of this working group will be to assess the the authorization, integrity and privacy requirements that must be met in order to transfer such information, or authorize the release or
    representation of such information through an agent. ... This WG won't develop technology to support any particular regulatory requirement [e.g. E.911] but will provide a framework that might be used for private/secure definition of such technologies by other bodies.
- RFC 1876, Davis, C., Vixie, P., Goodwin, and T. Dickinson, "A Means for Expressing Location Information in the Domain Name System", January 1996 (DNS LOC)
- Internet Emergency Preparedness
  - "the working group will devlop a Requirements for Internet Emergency Preparedness in the Internet RFC which will detail the specific functions and technologies needed to provide support for Emergency Preparedness systems in the Internet. The working group may also develop a Framework for Supporting Internet Emergency Preparedness in IP Telephony RFC if it is determined that IP
    telephony requires special treatment above what would be in the requirements document. "
NENA VoIP 911
- IP Capable PSAP Features and Capabilities Standard (58-001) (February 1, 2005)
Intrado

Intrado Intelligent Emergency Network
PSAP ALI Interface Issues : Next Generation Need, Intrado (May 2004)

ETSI
- Emergency Telecommunications
Columbia
- Emergency Calling for SIP Henning Schulzrinne
Service Providers

Vonage Completes Successful "Enhanced 9-1-1" Trial For VoIP Users With Rhode Island Public Safety

Statistics

Projected VoIP Residential 911 Calls VoIP: Evolution of the PSAP Experience, Intrado Slide 9 (2004)

2008: 10339
2007: 6363
2006: 3500
2005: 1656
2004: 370

Issues

Location Information

Access to PSAP

Cost Recovery

Marketing Representations

Consumer Expectations

Universal Number (ie address) for all applications

IP Enabled PSAP

Soft: Portable and distributed
Interact with multiple applications
- Video for someone using sign language or to gain more info from the scene
- Biometric data

Timeline

2003 First VoIP 911 Product

1997 First Mobile E911 call

1972 First E911 System

Feb. 16, 1968 First 911 call completed

1968 Bell Labs invests 911

Terms

Basic 911: 911 calls to PSAP. No caller location info

E911: 911

forward to appropriate PSAP through use of selective router
ANI & ALI

VoIP

I1: Basic 911 to PSAP
I2: E911
I3: E911 over IP

Laws

FCC Regulatory Proceedings

Legislation

State 911 Suits

Federal Activity

Papers

Links

Statistics

Issues

Timeline

News & Blogs