E911 Local Survivability for small remote offices

[BURLYMAN]

I have a few customers that have very small remote offices with only a couple of IP hardphones at each site. My issue is with E911 compliance. Is there a cost-effective solution on the market that can allow these small offices to dial from a local analog trunk in the event it is a 911 call or if the WAN is down they can pull from the local trunk? I have other customers wherein we used SOE IPO's however it is not really cost-effective for "emergency-only" situations when you only have 1 or 2 phones. Does anyone have any ideas or has anyone implemented a sound configuration to deal with this issue?

 

[SuperJenks]

Yeah, have a single phone connected to a local POTS trunk for them to use for emergencys only. We face the same problem all the time with remote IP phones and softphones. Any 911 calls made from the remote phone will not status the 911 center with correct address. Avaya is supposed to be working on a solution for this but Im not holding my breath.

 

[telecomtekperson]

All the remote sites that we have installed, we suggested a fax line be orcered as a pots, and a fax machine with a phone hanging off it. That way, CID will be correct.

But to answer your question, if you are able to manipulate outgoing CID. You can have the remote extensions send the DID as outgoing CID, then get with SBC or AT&T or whatever they are this week, and have them update the 911 database accordingly. Only problem, is if the remote sites are in different states, I am not sure when they diall 911, get the municapility where the main system resides...what happens...it will show a different address than the home system.

I have done the above only for 1 PRI on a system for company with 2 addresses.

 

[BURLYMAN]

telecomtekperson - Thanks for your input. I have done the same for a couple of companies (using DOD and having the local telco update the PSAP database) however what you and SuperJenks recommended is something that I have done as well but I am not confident that it is fully 911 compliant. Perhaps more needs to be done in this area (both on a Federal & State level) to actually define what is acceptable or "compliant" and what is not. From what I understood - all common-use telephones must be able to dial 911.

 

[SuperJenks]

Technically they can call 911, the problem is 911 center recieves incorrect location information. As far as sending out CLID, i have uderstood that the information sent to the 911 center is coming from the circuit information or provider, not the CLID info being sent out. This may vary between providers. I have been down this road a few times with unacceptable results.

 

[BURLYMAN]

Yes SuperJenks - you are right. THE CLID is incorrect for a remote location which poses the question "Who is liable for a configuration wherein 911 can not effectively transalte the appropriate address?" Should installers such as us be responsible for allowing an implementation that could potentially end in a situation where the emergency responders show up at the wrong location? Is it acceptable to install these remote IP phones and have the customer sign off on some kind of document which states that they are responsible for training their employees to use a fax phone (or a local analog phone) for making an emergency 911 call. I am to the point where I'm thinking of having a lawyer review a document wherein we have the customer sign-off which would somehow absolve our installers of any liability and force the customer to provide proper training for using local (seperate) phones for the purposes of emergencies. Now - none of this is an issue if the main site has service which allows DOD and the PSAP is capable of being updated with the remote address of the CLID. Oh well - I was just looking for the protocol that others are using but it seems that installers are just "putting it in" and quite possibly hoping for the best?

 

[tlpeter]

here in holland it works this way :

lets say ipo is in rotterdam (area code 010)
ip hard phone is in amsterdam (areacode 020)
here we use 112 instead of 911
they can dail 020112
then they will go to the right 112 center
maybe this works for you too ???

 

[tlpeter]

i have to add something
you must know where the center is
i always call them to ask
i don't know the rules about dialing them at your country
here it is not a big problem