mobloc8

Here’s a tragic story from the Chicago Tribune about a motorbike rider who died because his mobile phone calls to 911 couldn’t be traced: Biker Dies When Cell Calls Can’t Be Traced.

Unfortunately, the technical aspects of the article are quite poorly researched. For example, the article claims that in order to be located, “a cell phone user’s telephone also has to have more recent, compatible technology”. I guess they’re referring to A-GPS here, but there are plenty of other ways to locate a phone accurately enough to enable a successful search and rescue. Technologies like E-OTD, TA/NMR, and U-TDOA all work fine with older phones.

The article is correct, though, in highlighting how slow some network operators have been in rolling out their E-911 systems. As McHenry County Commissioner Mary Lou Zierer says, “You don’t realize the importance until something like this happens, where a gentleman probably could have been saved if we could have pinpointed him.”

Cablevision Systems Corp. has announced announced that its Optimum Voice VoIP service has just passed the one million customer mark. Optimum Voice includes enhanced 911 access for every customer.

Towns face deadline on 911 dispatch - Several southern Maine communities must decide this week who will handle their emergency phone calls. State officials set July 1, 2006, as the deadline for communities in four counties to decide who handles their Enhanced 911 calls. If everything runs as planned, the state will reduce the number of centers fielding Enhanced 911 calls from 48 to between 16 and 24. Already, the number of centers has been reduced to 45.

Minutes Count - an article about the need for rapid response and accurate information when dealing with an emergency services call. Stephens County is one of only two counties in Oklahoma without enhanced 911 coverage.

Macon County Enhanced 911 Audio Report - Macon County’s Legislature is contemplating approving changes to allow enhanced 911 even without voter approval.

NENA announced the start of the 20 day public review period for NENA’s Interim Solution standard (short name I2) on August 22, 2005. This is NENA’s first major standard on VoIP and E9-1-1 system interface, and is an interim solution for VoIP telecommunications service providers to provide full Enhanced 9-1-1 service through current E9-1-1 infrastructure. The draft standard is available for review and comments through the NENA web site.

This design and standard is a migratory step toward the currently in-progress design of an IP-based Next Generation 9-1-1 service that will flexibly support all types of 9-1-1 calling devices.

• NENA Interim VoIP Architecture for Enhanced 9-1-1 Services (i2) Draft
• NENA press release

The review period will end at 5:00PM on September 19th 2005.

Companies offering internet-based phone services in the US have been given just 120 days to ensure that their lines provide access to the emergency services, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled last week.

Source.

There are going to be a lot of problems with this mandate, and it’s likely to stifle the development and deployment of VoIP technology. A cynic might think that that’s what the incumbent telcos want - a few more years of being able to charge inflated fees for telephone services before voice becomes just another service delivered over broadband and metered by the megabyte.

Meanwhile, other countries will continue to pull ahead of the US in this area.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) has complained to the FCC about Vonage’s proposed interim method of handling E911 VoIP calls.

Vonage is proposing to route E911 VoIP calls to the 10-digit administrative number of the nearest PSAP, until they can get a proper E911 solution running.

APCO is taking the position that all new technologies such as VoIP should be required to support E911 properly. Expecting PSAPs to respond to emergency calls on administrative numbers disrupts and strains their limited resources.

Source.

TruePosition today announced a hosted solution for wireless location, designed to help rural carriers meet the FCC’s E911 Phase II requirements.

This type of hosted solution is great for smaller wireless carriers, as it helps them avoid the upfront capital cost of mobile location infrastructure. It also removes the ongoing burden of maintenance and operation of the equipment.

This particular service seems to rely primarily on the network-based U-TDOA (Uplink Time Difference Of Arrival) location technology.

Source.

Time is running out for fast-growing Net phone providers to fully support 911 emergency services, a key but costly public safety feature that few now provide.

This is a pretty good rundown on the current issues surrounding VoIP and its support of E911 in the USA.

Source.

NENA and America Online, Inc issued a joint release April 7 announcing that AOL and NENA will work together to develop a multi-faceted public awareness campaign and AOL has joined the Next Generation E9-1-1 Program, as a member of the Operational/Educational roundtable. AOL’s VoIP service, which is being offered, starting the same day, does include E9-1-1 as a standard feature.

Source.

If you want to know more about how the FCC’s wireless Enhanced 911 (E911) rules work, the best place to start is at their own web site.

There you’ll find information on previous and upcoming hearings and statements, reports, press releases, waivers and more. They also make available Phase II quarterly reports for most carriers (some carriers are not required to lodge reports), so you can check up how each one is doing in their deployment of E911 services.

Another article on the controversial Vonage VoIP 911 service, and the Texas attorney general’s lawsuit against them.

A sticking point seems to be the fact that Vonage requires manual activation of the 911 service, where the consumer needs to ring up and specify the address at which the phone is installed so that emergency calls can be routed to the correct PSAP.

Some are suggesting that Vonage should collect the customer’s address when the VoIP service is first ordered, and activate the 911 service before shipping the equipment. But Vonage counters that they never really know what address the equipment will be installed at. In fact, one of the benefits of Vonage’s VoIP service is that the customer can move the phone to wherever they have broadband access. When that happens, the customer is supposed to ring up and have their 911 address updated.

The software to map the subscriber’s physical address to the nearest PSAP is provided by Intrado.

It’ll be interesting to see where this case ends up. The cynic in me thinks that the incumbent phone companies will leverage the E911 issue to stall the rollout of VoIP and protect their lucrative voice business, or force VoIP providers to pay them to access 911 services. What do you think?

Source.

Washington State charges a 20c per month Enhanced 911 Tax on every land line and wireless phone account. The money is used to fund the state enhanced 911 telephone system. Local counties may also charge a monthly fee to fund local emergency service communication systems.

Details on the Washington State Department of Revenue site.

From TelecomWeb.

Tier 3 carriers SureWest Wireless and Immix Wireless have decided to use Intrado’s hosted services instead of installing and running their own E911 solution.

This is probably a sensible thing for smaller carriers to do. The cost of installing and maintaining an E911 solution is significant, and with technologies continuing to evolve they could expect even more capital expenditure in the future. Better to let the experts worry about that stuff and stick to core business.

From I-Newswire.com

Sprint has announced the availability of the Sprint PCS Phone SCP-200 by Sanyo. It’ll sell for USD$169.99, or USD$19.99 after rebate. See the link for more details.

This looks like a pretty good, cheap, A-GPS handset for Sprint customers.