7.1. 911 IssuesTaking the long-term view, 911 calls over broadband phones should be sorted out by 2007 or 2008. Growing pains will cause some awkwardness and make too many tragic headlines as broadband phone companies struggle to improve their technology and gain access to emergency service centers now controlled by traditional telephone companies. Internet Telephony providers, or at least the phone-centric group, will be forced to start paying into the pool that supports 911 service, often labeled "Cost Recovery." Currently, traditional telephone line users are charged under a dollar per month per line (many are actually a half dollar or less, but that will likely increase). Note: The 411 on 911Curious? A real 911 fan? Check out the National Emergency Number Association at http://nena.org. Some seem to think 911 arrived long ago, completely functional, and one call automatically delivered many vital details to an emergency operator from the beginning. Nope. The initial push for what became 911 was in 1957, when a national group of Fire Chiefs recommended a single number to report fires. Thirty years later, only half the phones in the United States had any type of 911 service. Even in 2000, about 10% of the U.S. population who called 911 still had to provide their location, because the emergency operator did not receive that information from the system. The automatic delivery of a caller's phone number and physical address to the 911 personnel receiving the call is called Enhanced 911. You may see this abbreviated as E911, e9-1-1, or e911. All the noise about cell phones and 911 calls? Even though cell phone providers are "real" telephone companies in every sense of the word, only about 40% of the emergency operators in the U.S. can receive E911 calls from cell phone users. A cell phone user can call 911 just about everywhere in the U.S. and reach an emergency operator, but only with what's called Level 1 access. This means no phone number or address information will be delivered to the emergency operators. Broadband phone services, especially the phone-centric vendors, should at least have this level of support, but they don't. The big push to deliver Enhanced 911 calls via cell phone has yet to provide such support for even half the U.S., but the cell phone industry faces different technical problems because their clients are always mobile. Broadband phone services have very few mobile customers and can't hide behind that excuse. Broadband phone providers, by the decentralized nature of their service, struggle with traditional 911 service connections. The following list provides some reasons why broadband phones have more trouble than traditional telephone providers delivering 911 service.
If after more than 40 years after 911 rollout, 10% of the traditional telephone line users are still without Enhanced 911, what hope do the broadband phone providers have? Actually, quite a bit. The technology behind broadband phones, and the improving technology in emergency centers handling 911 calls, will come together in some interesting ways in the next two years. Note: Plague on Both HousesOn one hand, we have the traditional telephone companies controlling the 911 technology and often blocking broadband phone company access, and then fueling the hype when tragedies occur because of broadband phone service 911 failures. Shame on them. On the other hand, we have broadband phone companies who have not done enough to provide even minimal emergency response support. Heap blame on both sides, because they both deserve plenty. 7.1.1. Broadband Phone Providers and 911 TodayNo phone-centric broadband phone providers have the same level of 911 support as traditional telephone companies. Some pilot projects are underway, and some other projects will get started, while the various telephone players coordinate properly. Back in Chapter 5, I listed 911 support as one of the features in a comparison table. Here is a bit more about each of those companies, and a couple of others not mentioned earlier:
Emergency operators work in a PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point or Public Service Access Point). These centers can be run by the local police or fire department, ambulance service, or a facility run by a coordinating body, such as a city or county. 911 calls come into the center, connect to a database of numbers and addresses called the DMS/ALI (Data Management System/Automatic Location Identification) system, and provide that information to the emergency operator. Note: Character FlawsPSAP with DMS and ALI? Telephone people may be even crazier about acronyms than computer people. These emergency centers also accept calls through lines other than just their 911 connections. This is how most broadband phone companies connect, because they are not always authorized as official telecommunications providers with the right to connect into the 911 system. Because of the seriousness required for emergency responses, there are tight restrictions on system access. Because computers run 911 centers, and computers run broadband phone companies, coordinating the two requires more meeting time than installation time. Michael Tribolet, Executive Vice President of Operations at Vonage, said the Rhode Island trial took months to set up politically but only 30 minutes to install technically. Vonage worked with Intrado Inc. (www.intrado.com) in Rhode Island, and Intrado provides 911 services to many communities. Tribolet made it clear that Vonage wants "real" 911 service, so they called one of the leaders in 911 technology to help them. Packet8 worked with their primary network provider, Level 3 Communications (www.level3.com), leveraging their existing data centers all over the U.S. By grabbing their customer's 911 calls as they're made, adding the phone number and location information necessary, Packet8 can route those calls through the 911 inbound connection. Emergency operators see the same information from a Packet8 customer as they would from a traditional telephone line user. All Packet8 service plans receive this Enhanced 911 support, but some geographical areas may not yet be activated. As with every developing market, some lead and the rest follow. Packet8 and Vonage are leading, and the others are following, but everyone will integrate "real" 911 service over the next two years. 7.1.2. How Broadband Phone Providers Should Be Handling 911 Calls TodayIt has been irresponsible for broadband phone companies to pitch phone service to consumers and drop the ball completely on 911 support (like the three companies mentioned earlier who provide no 911 service options). Technical issues aside, the first piece of paper a consumer sees when opening their phone-equipped router or telephone adapter should say in big letters "911 CALL SETUP DETAILS." That same headline should be at the top of the web configuration page you use to set up your service. Cost for these changes? Pennies per customer. It's almost as if broadband phone companies don't really expect people to replace their traditional telephone line with the new service. And the advice to call 911 on your traditional telephone stinks, too. Every phone must support 911. When broadband phone providers ship a router or telephone adapter, they know your address. They just need to track that address in a database. When you buy a router at retail, you must provide an address to begin your service. Broadband phone providers should institute a very simple rule: if no physical address, then no broadband phone service. Here's what the broadband phone companies should do:
Technically, these plans take only days to implement. They will cost money, but far less money than fighting one of the lawsuits already filed over 911 problems. Personally, I'd much rather see money spent on improved technology than for lawyers, because improved technology always costs less and provides more benefits than lawsuits. Note: 911 Everywhere?On May 19th, 2005, the Federal Communications Commission issued an order "that certain providers of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone service supply enhanced 911 (E911) emergency calling capabilities to their customers as a mandatory feature of the service." Moreover, the FCC demanded that traditional telephone companies allow broadband phone service providers access to their 911 systems and decreed this be done within 120 days. Details are vague, so expect active lawyering on all sides. And Skype already issued a statement saying this doesn't apply to them, so even deciding what is and isn't a "voice over Internet Protocol phone service" will probably wind up in court too. But at least the hammer dropped and the integration begins. 7.1.3. Broadband Phone Providers and 911 TomorrowTomorrow is another day, of course, but this tomorrow is several years in the future. I'm guessing four, but that could vary by one less or three more depending on the costs and resistance by traditional telephone companies. Here's the great advantage of Internet Telephony as it applies to 911 service: once a phone call becomes nothing but data, much more data can be attached, referenced, or indexed by that data. Computers talk to computers faster and more accurately than any two operators ever could. Many 911 centers gather extra information about homes and businesses in their area as part of emergency preparedness. Fire departments want to know if a company uses hazardous materials, and a building floor plan helps rescue efforts. Gathering, tracking, and presenting this information to rescue workers varies widely between jurisdictions, however, and there are no standards in place. But as we've seen, standards groups love Internet Telephony. They also love data exchange formats so companies can transmit and receive data in a usable structure, even if they don't really know what's coming. Add these two trends together and interesting things appear. With more integration and customer preplanning, 911 calls over broadband phones in the future may include the following:
Any information about your residence, family, or business location that's accessible via computer can become part of the message stream. There's a limit to how much information an ambulance needs, of course, but sending other information to related parties will save time and smooth recovery from the emergency event. Calling 911 from cell phones remains a bit dicey, but is getting better. The broadband phone equivalent, using a softphone from a laptop or PDA, won't get better for quite a while, although the convergence of wireless networks and cell phone technology may speed things along. GPS support in all mobile devices would really help. There's no easy way to track location because the wireless data network doesn't work the same way the cell phone network does. A cell phone provider handles all their customer's calls for an area, so they know if the cell phone is near because they keep tabs on it. Wi-Fi networks come from a wide variety of different vendors, such as coffee shops, paid access areas like airports, and poorly managed private networks open to any wandering user searching for a signal. No central coordination of wireless data access means no way to gather client information and cross-reference the softphone number with the wireless client's identity. So if you plan on creating an emergency for yourself, just remember that a softphone makes it hard to call for help. Don't throw out that cell phone just yet. |