FCC To Require 911 for VoIP

Robert Bonomi bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com
Mon May 2 01:33:35 UTC 2005


> From owner-nanog at merit.edu  Sun May  1 17:41:59 2005
> From: Chris Boyd <cboyd at gizmopartners.com>
> Subject: Re: FCC To Require 911 for VoIP
> Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 17:41:40 -0500
> To: nanog at merit.edu
>
>
>
> On May 1, 2005, at 11:53 AM, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
>
> > so, how does this work when you dial into the internet in (or use your
> > DSL) in newark and the termination point for L3 is in Philadelphia? 
> > That
> > seems like more than 1sq mile...
> >
>
> In the dial up case, you could/should know the originating number, so 
> location can be determined from that.

In rural areas, the 'precision' of *that* data is "highly variable".  I
know farmers who have 'private wire' strung from the house (where the PSTN
terminates) to various outbuildings.  In fact, I have an uncle who farms
in  S.W. Iowa, *right*on* the IA-MO border.  The house is in Iowa, but
he's got barns in the next county (which is also a different state!).  It's 
all contiguous, so running the wire was no problem.  (note: this wire went
in _before_ cell-phones existed.)

> In the DSL case, the ATM PVC can often be mapped back to a DSLAM port 
> and thus a wire pair with a known termination.
>
> Whether the provisioning and management systems are up to the task of 
> providing this information quickly enough for emergency services, I 
> don't know.

With DSL, you don't have to chase the wire-pair in 'near real-time'.
The ATM PVC, or at worst the DSLAM port, uniquely identifies the customer.
the customer records have the 'service address'.

Even simpler, the source IP address, if static, directly identifies the
customer,   And, if dynamic, it just takes a dip into the authentication
database to extract the customer ID.  And pulling the customer record
gets the service address.

Of course, this is all *no*help*, when the customer has set up a wi-fi link
with some "Pringles can antennas" (or better) and is actually several miles 
away from the DSL termination.

The "correct" way to deal with the entire problem is to put a flag in the 
PSAP location database that says, _loudly_, on the E-911 console "This is
a roving number. It does NOT have a fixed location. You must ASK THE CALLER
where they are.  'Best guess', *but*only*a*guess*, on location is ..."

The 'try to solve it with technology' approach would be for the SIP head-
end to query the custeomer for his location any time it sees a _change_ of 
IP address for the customer equipment.






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