Providing location information to IP end-nodes

Wed May 4 09:58:18 UTC 2005

> I'm trying to solve the "which PSAP" problem.

In that case, consider this. If I am in Tokyo and
you route me to a Tokyo PSAP, I won't be able to
communicate because I don't speak Japanese. But if
I were in Moscow and you route me to a Moscow PSAP,
there is no problem; I can communicate there. So although
I am normally a resident of London England, it may make
more sense to route me to a U.S. PSAP when I am in Tokyo
because that way I can explain the problem. Of course this
does me no good if the emergency services in various
countries are not linked up in some way.

But! Aren't we talking about *IP* telephony here?
Isn't it logical to include IP network connectivity
to E911 centers in the solution. And if all E911 centers
have resilient Internet connections to handle incoming
VoIP emergency calls, then why can't they also use this
to communicate with other nations. Presumably Japan
could designate a center with people speaking English,
Chinese, Russian and Korean to handle referrals from
other countries.

There have been incidents where people used their mobile
phone to call a relative at home, and that relative contacted
the emergency services. This has been reported several times
in the British media and one case involved an emergency
situation in Australia.

Even this seemingly simple routing problem has to be
solved in a larger context.

> But it seemed to *me* that the point of the whole thread either was, or
> should have been, to figure out the solution before the FCC (who are
> guaranteed to screw it up) did it for us, no?

If the FCC decide to solve the problem through consultation
then they will probably come up with the best solution 
that is currently possible. However, consultation only works
when people with domain knowledge are willing to share that
knowledge with the FCC. 

I know that people from the FCC, FBI, NSA and other agencies
attend NANOG meetings. How often do people from the NANOG world
attend FCC meetings to present possible solutions to issues?

--Michael Dillon