E911

Swatting Is a New Dangerous Sport

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:26:35 +0100

Doug Mohoney at FierceTelecom reported this incredible (too strange to be true) story about abuse of public safety resources. Called 'swatting' the game is really costly and quite a dangerous prank. These really stupid people get their jollies sending 911 emergency crews which can include SWAT teams, canine units and helicopters of metropolitan police forces, to unsuspecting innocent homes anticipating hostage situations, murder scenes or worse and then laughing all about the waste ...

Broadcast SMS as Public Safety Service

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 08:00:00 +0100

The first report of Brockmann & Company, First Communications was on public safety and business users' recommendations. In the research, it became clear that mobile is the most powerful emergency communications service. It is also the default communications service. When the office PBX is rebooted, what to enterprise sales people do? They use their mobile phones and do business even though they have a pretty good excuse why they can't. As I read through the ...

James Kim Dies After Leaving Car & Family

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:00:34 +0100

Sadly, it's a story of one mistake, one death and one great technology. James Kim, a C|Net editor, with a car abandoned on a road in a remote Oregon forest, left his wife and two daughters on Saturday to seek for help, which he never found. That was the mistake - never leave the car. The wife and children were found in the car on Monday afternoon, his body was found on Wednesday after Thanksgiving 2006. Aparently, the cellular phone provided a trajectory for the rescuers to find th...

AIM PhoneLine Supports E911

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 01:00:00 +0100

Using a technique I proposed in November 2004, AIM solves this demanding issue.

Having users confirm the physical address of the network endpoint at login, is useful. It balances the network operator's need to know where to send emergency services with the users' practice of logging in and out of PC-based services from time to time. A solid solution if I say so myself.
;-)

FCC Enforcement Division

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 01:00:00 +0100

FCC Enforcement Division Weighs in with a procedure for extensions and expected actions for non-compliance. You might recall the FCC decision to require telephony-substitute services to require notification to each and every enduser about E911 capabilities (or lack of them) capturing an affirmative acknowledgment of that communication.In this communique, the FCC Enforcement Bureau provides guidance on what to do if no affirmative acknowledgment is obtained by the end date (shut off the servi...

FCC Weighs in on E911 and consumer VoIP

Sat, 21 May 2005 01:00:00 +0100

Well, despite the context that VoIP is a different service than telephone service, the FCC orders E911 compliance. The Federal Communications Commission dials into E911 for voice over IP service providers. In a decision released on Thursday, May 19, 2005, the commission identified that fundamentally substitute services that connect with the PSTN must allow consumers to call 911 and get the emergency service they expect. Not to be confused with IM-type, PC-to-PC calls in games etc, only thos...

Vonage Sued by Texas Attorney General

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:00:00 +0100

Disclosing 911 limitations is important. After a Houston couple were attacked, and calls through the VoIP providers' 911 service didn't work as the teen making the call had expected, the Texas Attorney General sued. This sounds like a publicity stunt, but one that can force the consumer voip provider and hopefully the FCC and the carriers managing 911 services into a more-proactive stance. Right now, most VoIP service providers are not allowed to connect directly to the 911 cent...

E911 Goes National

Sun, 06 Mar 2005 01:00:00 +0100

The regulatory mish-mash in this country that is the 911 environment needs clearer definition to include IP Telephony sites and services. A recent USA Today article (March 1, 2005) flagged the life-and-death issues in 911. The story showcases a family that struggled with robbers in their home and the call to 911 was not delivered since the family used a VoIP service provider. It was only a matter of time that this issue would blow up and cause significant public safety concern. E911 was bui...

E911 via IP? 4 - remote users and other devices

Thu, 18 Nov 2004 01:00:00 +0100

What about work-at-homers? Should they be able to use their company IP phones to dial E911? Part 4 of 4. I say, sure. Citizenship for remote employees is a big requirement in today's location insensitive enterprise. This is a problem similar to what residential subscribers of Vonage or AT&T's Advantage IP Telephony service are having to deal with. However, instead of offering legalese to avoid the obvious need for good planning and effective service design, we're going to sol...

E911 via IP? 3 Softphones and PCs

Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:00:00 +0100

Will somebody actually email 911? Part 3 of 4. For the longest time, the standard joke offered by PBX vendors as to why IP Telephony needs a lot of work, is that they'd remind people that "Nobody emails 911." In the previous 2 articles, we reviewed how E911 works today for circuit switched implementations, how it works in wireless networks and how it should use information about the physical network (L1 and L2) to map IP address to physical port and end point so E911 can work...

E911 via IP? 2

Tue, 16 Nov 2004 01:00:00 +0100

Thoughts on enterprise IP telephony deployments and E911 service. Part 2 of 4. E911 mechanisms are based on the geographical limitations of circuit switching. All telephone numbers are assigned to specific ports on central office switches which terminate at specific physical addresses, which the phone company keeps really, really good records on. IP Telephony implementations, on the other hand, have difficulty duplicating the geographical limitations of central offices. Fortunately, IP Tele...

E911 via IP?

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 01:00:00 +0100

IP Telephony needs some serious thought here. Part 1 of 4. Today's E911 system is based on a fundamental flaw in circuit-based telephony - geographic-based addressing. Area codes and telephone numbers were engineered in a time when electro-mechanical step-switches first completed automatic routing. These numbers imbedded geographical data directly into them. For example, 212 area code, is Manhattan, 312 - Chicago and so on. For the longest time, your telephone number was bound to a physica...