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July 23, 2008
Answering the call for breakthrough 911 advances
Today President Bush signed into law hugely importantly legislation that finally provides VoIP providers with better tools for direct access to the 911 network and the liability relief necessary. The VON Coalition's press release is below. This is the first major piece of telecommunications legislation signed into law this year -- and it happens to be a bill designed to help advance VoIP.
The bill provides tools that the FCC failed to provide 3 years ago when first adopting rules for VoIP 911. Even without these tools, VoIP providers have made extraordinary efforts and now provide E911 to a greater percentage of subscribers than any other kind of voice service. Its been the fastest and broadest onetime implementation of E-911 in the history of public safety. As a result of these unprecedented effort by VoIP providers, Americans who dial 911 using interconnected VoIP services can now rest assured they can reach help in an emergency. It is a particularly remarkable achievement considering that no underlying network connectivity provider can yet offer VoIP providers the ability to connect to all selective routers nationwide. This bill now gives VoIP providers a chance to expand their base, and VoIP consumers assurances that they can be safe and secure using a dependable VoIP service.
But more importantly, thanks to the work of the VON Coalition, the bill also recognizes that when we put VoIP at the heart of the 911 network itself, we can achieve breakthrough new advancements in emergency service for all Americans -- regardless of the type of service you use. It’s no secret that America’s 911 network is still providing 911 and E911 today using 1960s-era technology. The bill calls for a new national strategy for upgrading the nation's entire 911 network from 1960s era technology to 21st century IP and VoIP technologies at its core to help make Americans more safe and secure.
The nation’s 9-1-1 system is based on a communications technology that most businesses have moved far beyond. There is now a growing consensus on the shortcomings of the present 9-1-1 system and the need for a new, more capable system. When we can harness the power of VoIP to transform the 911 network itself, we can help unleash a host of breakthrough emergency advances never before possible. By migrating to such a VoIP based emergency network, 911 calls might one day include:
- Automatic language preferences. By pre-selecting a user’s language preference, an emergency call could be automatically routed to a call taker that speaks the caller’s native language, potentially saving time and saving lives.
- Pictures and video. Getting pictures and video from cell phones at the scene of a crime or in the midst of an emergency directly into the hands of first responders can further improve emergency response.
- Information on a caller’s medical status. If consumers choose to pre-enter vital medical information (e.g., whether an Alzheimer patient lives at the registered location; the heart medicine a subscriber uses), call takers and emergency responders could access critical information that could make the difference between life and death.
- Maps and other location specific information. Call takers could access maps of commercial buildings or notes about hazardous on-site chemicals – data that could prove critical to emergency responders.
- Ensure that all 911 calls can be answered. Katrina underscored the limitations of the current 9-1-1 infrastructure. During Katrina, some 36 PSAPs went down and couldn’t answer 911 calls after a single tandem failed. A VoIP enabled emergency network, using a network designed to withstand nuclear attack, allows call to travel over any available network and for overflow calls to be rerouted just like a modern call center. For massive emergencies, such overflow could be critical. A VoIP network also allows nomadic 911 calltakers to take calls from a remote location in an emergency in the event that a primary sight is taken offline. And by converging communications over a single IP network, it means 911 can become another node in broader IP based emergency response network.
The advent of VoIP, including interconnected VoIP services, is ushering in a new era of disaster-proof communications systems. VoIP and other IP-based communications services increasingly serve as the foundation of “survivable” networks that provide reliable and efficient connectivity in emergency situations even when key infrastructure has been disabled or destroyed. Because it operates over decentralized IP networks with redundant paths between any two points, interconnected VoIP service mitigates the dire consequences that can otherwise result from single points of failure.
The VoIP communications industry is justifiably proud of the technology’s achievements in the public safety arena, and it continues to make emergency services a key priority. Yet in light of interconnected VoIP’s impressive track record and largely untapped public safety potential, VoIP providers need this new law to help remove the barriers that can make these vital public safety technologies available in more regions and in more ways.
Back in March, 1996 when I helped start the VON Coalition, I had no idea that all these years later the leadership of the VON Coalition would be able to directly affect legislation like the bill the President signed today.
Big kudos to those who made this possible and for supporting a vision that protects both public safety and innovation, while recognizing that VoIP can be harnessed in new ways for enormous public gain.
The text of the legislation (H.R. 3403) can be found here.
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VON Coalition Press Release: VoIP Leaders Applaud New Law Unlocking Future 9-1-1 Capabilities
BACKGROUND: Today, President Bush signed into law the “New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008” (H.R. 3403.) The legislation will help accelerate VoIP 911 solutions by providing direct access to the 9-1-1 network, enabling equivalent liability relief for call-takers, and requiring the creation of a national plan for a next generation 9-1-1 system that uses VoIP to provide breakthrough advances in emergency communications.
The following statement can be attributed to Caitlin Clark-Zigmond, President of the VON Coalition.
“This is a huge step forward for public safety, broadband users, and innovators alike. Enabling consumers to take advantage of transformative technologies like VoIP and answering the call for the modernization of our 911 network will help ensure that all Americans will be more safe and secure in an emergency.
Dialing 911 can be the most important call a person ever makes. That is why VoIP providers have made providing 911 emergency service in an Internet world a paramount priority. Interconnected VoIP providers have gone to extraordinary lengths to make astonishing progress under a very ambitious timetable. We are proud that Interconnected VoIP services now provide E911 to more than 97 percent of their subscribers -- the fastest and broadest onetime implementation of E911 in the history of public safety. And America is safer for it. As a result of this unprecedented effort, Americans who dial 911 using interconnected VoIP services can now rest assured they can reach help in an emergency. It is a particularly remarkable achievement considering that no underlying network connectivity provider can yet offer VoIP providers the ability to connect to all selective routers nationwide.
This legislation is important public safety legislation. Critically, this bill:
- Gives public safety, interconnected VoIP providers and others involved in handling 911 calls the same liability protections when handling 911 calls from interconnected VoIP users as from mobile or wired telephone service users.
- Gives interconnected VoIP providers access to the same tools for implementing 911 and E911 as mobile service providers, on the same rates, terms and conditions. This ensures that 911 component suppliers receive a fair price, including a reasonable profit, but precludes profiteering on components for interconnected VoIP 911 services or use of critical 911 components as a tool to delay competition from interconnected VoIP.
- Advances the development of next generation IP-based 911 systems, so that we can have a 911 system that uses 21st century VoIP technology, not network technology from the 1960s.
- Precludes the FCC from creating a technology-specific 911 and E911 mandate.
- By utilizing the FCC’s definition of interconnected VoIP services, maintains the focus of 911 and E911 obligations on those services that are telephone replacement services.
These are critical steps forward for accelerating life-saving E911 solutions across the country and for enabling consumers to take advantage of transformative technologies like VoIP throughout the country.
Tags: E911, FCC, voip, VON Coalition, 911, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on July 23, 2008 06:47 PM | Permalink
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Comments
911 Enable would also like to commend those who worked to bring the NET 911 Act into effect. It is especially pleasing to see the requirement for a plan to migrate to a national IP-enabled emergency network, particularly the specification that this plan address the challenge posed by nomadic devices and business multiline telephone systems. 911 Enable has long stressed the importance of accurately and precisely locating enterprise callers, whether they are calling from an on-site phone, from home, or from the road. As telecommuting and mobility-enabled IP communications technologies continue to grow in popularity, the need to implement adequate E911 service has become critical. 911 Enable hopes that the NET 911 Act will pave the way for much-needed – and potentially life-saving – changes to the nation’s emergency network.
Posted by: 911 Enable at August 7, 2008 12:40 PM
Hey Jeff,
What is the current status of the 911 legislation and Skype in and Skype out. Does the FCC treat that as an interconnected service? Have they made any public statement?
Posted by: Ramah at July 27, 2008 09:45 PM
Nortel also supports this initiative and is pleased to see that our continued efforts for public education of E911 as well as location discovery of VoIP and nomadic IP devices in a corporate environment are reinforced and specifically called out in this important Act.
Millions of people spend much of their day in an office building using advanced VoIP communications, yet very few understand the impact that technology can have on E911 if not properly implemented and managed. Defining and enforcing standards in this environment can only save lives. We are proud to be a contributor to the solution for this growing problem.
NENA, the National Emergency Number Association has also been taking steps to encourage legislation at the state level, but the fact of the matter is that very few states (only 14 in fact)actually have any 9-1-1 laws on the books requiring enterprises to implement any additional functionality that would allow for a 9-1-1 dispatcher to obtain more accurate location information from their PBX. The saddest part of this story is that the technology actually exists, and is often left provisioned in many PBX systems installed today.
There have been stories in the news over the years of people who have experienced significant delays in emergency services response, or worse yet actually died, due to telephone system not having 911 implemented properly.
Thank you to all who contributed to this important legislation. Without the continued support from the telecommunications and Public Safety industry, actions like this would not be possible.
Mark Fletcher, ENP (Nortel Emergency Services Product Line Manager) NENA MLTS Workgroup Technical Subcommittee Chair
Posted by: Mark Fletcher at July 25, 2008 01:55 PM