Advanced e911 - granular based on room or building

[DinkyDonkey]

I'm answering an RFP with a request for advanced e911 location based on the port the phone is plugged into. I imagine this can be done crudely with a unique e911 number for each building, floor, room (depending on granularity) and then updating the devices using LLDP and the Kazoo API.

Has anyone tackled granular e911 locations for larger buildings?

I've noticed in Bandwidth newsletters that they are working on this, https://www.bandwidth.com/9-1-1/

Edited October 4, 2017 by DinkyDonkey (see edit history)

[Darren Schreiber]

1 hour ago, DinkyDonkey said:

I'm answering an RFP with a request for advanced e911 location based on the port the phone is plugged into. I imagine this can be done crudely with a unique e911 number for each building, floor, room (depending on granularity) and then updating the devices using LLDP and the Kazoo API.

Has anyone tackled granular e911 locations for larger buildings?

I've noticed in Bandwidth newsletters that they are working on this, https://www.bandwidth.com/9-1-1/

Hi there,
     As far as I know, every number gets a unique address (even room number) so I am not aware of a way you can transmit the specifics of the room or location number with granularity at this time. If someone is working on that, it is news to me - right now they make money off each of those numbers so there's no motivation, to my knowledge, to fix that.

     We played with an idea at one point to change the APIs in realtime - person dials 911, we update the API with the latest address, pause for 2 seconds, then connect the call, but decided it was a terrible idea to have someone wait on the line, even for 2 seconds, when calling 911, so abandoned that (without the pause the databases didn't seem to update reliably enough / rapidly enough).

      So I am unaware of a solution to this besides paying per number.

 

[Darren Schreiber]

Also there's only like 3 actual certified VoIP PSAP interconnect companies, everyone is just reselling their stuff. I believe it's 911 Enable (now West?), Intrado (also now West?) and bandwidth.

[DinkyDonkey]

Thanks Darren, this was my thinking too, glad to see it confirmed on your end. I don't think what they want is available yet, so I'm going to pitch it as they can divide up the property as granular as they want, and pay for each e911 enabled DID, and then tie that to the location. It's nice knowing it's unlikely any other vendor will be able to deliver exactly what they want.

[Arek]

Hi,

You can try with Bandwidth. They support sip header: X-Geolocation:<geo: 39.752913, -104.996080;timestamp=20161213164900> that will route call to correct PSAP based on geolocation. If kazoo supports custom headers maybe that can be added to specific device and then transmitted with 911 call.

From documentation:

Quote

The caller will be routed to the PSAP matching the lat-lng in the geolocation header. If the latlng is invalid or the timestamp older than 60 minutes, the call will go to the emergency call center.

Arek

[Darren Schreiber]

How does that accomplish telling the PSAP what room or floor the person is on?

[mc_]

You can test it out by setting "sip.custom_sip_headers.in.X-Geolocation" on the device doc. This will set the header on outbound calls from the device (Kazoo typically uses in[bound] to mean coming to Kazoo from the endpoint). But it doesn't address the room/floor question.

[Arek]

On 10/5/2017 at 10:12 PM, Darren Schreiber said:

How does that accomplish telling the PSAP what room or floor the person is on?

Darren,

You are right, it wont deliver address. It will route to correct PSAP and deliver subscriber name only. That is I guess more for mobile devices.

There is another option: 

Quote

Bandwidth provides a service where your subscribers can call 911 without using phone numbers. Instead of the typical ANI, you register a SIP URI username for the subscriber, along with their name and location, in our databases. When that caller needs help, you send the call to us with the SIP URI instead of the ANI in one of the caller-identifying SIP headers (See section "Supported Privacy Types). Upon receipt of the SIP INVITE from that SIP URI, Bandwidth will send the registered address for that caller to the PSAP. In addition, since most PSAPs are unable to make direct connections to SIP proxies, Bandwidth will temporarily reserve a number from our own PSTN pool to support PSAP callback. If the PSAP needs to call your subscriber back, Bandwidth will bridge the call from the PSAP to your subscriber's SIP UA.

Those are just options and I'm thinking out loud. You could register username with room number. 

Arek

[Logicwrath]

Hello,

I started thinking about this today as well as I was reviewing an RFP.  The RFP references Michigan's guide lines for multi-line telephone systems: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/FINAL_MLTS_Guidelines_503991_7.pdf

At first glance this it appears that to meet the requirements you need to enter the location of the phone in the "Address Line 2" box of the E911 emergency address:

According to that PDF it looks like this will be required for MLTS by December 31st 2019.

"Under Michigan law, the provision of an Emergency Response Location (ERL) for every telephone capable of dialing 911 on a multi-line telephone system is required by December 31, 2019."

I know in the past we talked about introducing locations into Monster UI to help with managing e911 for larger accounts with multiple locations.

As I was thinking about this specific use case (for RFP's requiring the location information) I was wondering if it was possible to allow the location information (Address Line 2) to be merged from the User and Device level when the call is processed.  Perhaps this is what you were mentioning earlier in the thread Darren.

The wording above makes it sound like all MLTS systems will require this by 2020.

[Tomcat76]

How about when 911 is dialed it will conference in a call attendant in my case the front desk at a hotel so the police dont just show up with out any idea of who called.  

[safarov]

Hello @DinkyDonkey @Darren Schreiber @Logicwrath

Could you describe some more info how this works.
1) phone request location info from connected switch and then send this with INVITE message;
2) kazoo must have access to LLDP enabled switch end request info by MAC/IP of called device.

Could you make reference to docs where this described.

[DinkyDonkey]

@mc_ @Darren Schreiber looks like Bandwidth.com offers what they call "dynamic location routing" where you can send additional details, https://www.bandwidth.com/9-1-1/dynamic-location-routing/ and this is from their pdf  "Sophisticated 9-1-1 routing that uses PIDF-LO (Presence Information Data Format-Location Object), a standard that’s used to represent an address/ location in XML format".

I found details on PIDF-LO here: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4119 and https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5139.txt

@safarov Kazoo currently uses standard 911 routing where the emergency caller ID on the device, user, or account has an address in a database which is sent to emergency dispatch. There is no additional information provided, however this thread is to talk about how more details could be provided.

Edited July 10, 2018 by DinkyDonkey (see edit history)

[Darren Schreiber]

Yup. The service is referred to as Next Generation 911 and we've been working with bandwidth to get this implemented. It's in progress but actually getting it turned on is non-trivial with them atm.

We'll be sure to announce once this is available!

[DinkyDonkey]

I don't think it's urgent as using standard 911 and multiple emergency TNs works well, however great to hear that it's in the pipeline.

[Logicwrath]

Any updates to the dynamic location 911 routing?  I seem to recall it mentioned that something like this was being worked on where we would be able to merge in address 2 data dynamically.   We need this.

[Darren Schreiber]

Yup we are still working on completing this. I'm hoping it will launch in October.

 

[extremerotary]

Just adding my 2-cents in here; It's not up to 2600hz to build this. Every carrier charges VoIP providers on a per-location basis. So even if 2600hz built something to make it look like it was all one, they would be getting charged on the backend so that wouldn't make sense from a business perspective. However, i know for a fact that since Ray Baum's Act, Bandwidth,com (3 day outage, i know i know) has been actively working on a dynamic E911 addressing service. In this way, 2600 could pass additional, more specific data to the PSAP using SIP headers (Like "room 121") instead of requiring an e911 registration per room. Last I heard they were close. Might be ready at this point. Bandwidth wasn't the only carrier looking into this, so since 2600hz aggregates multiple outbound carriers, i'm sure they are working with one to develop this dynamic e911 farther and bring that to their customers!

[Darren Schreiber]

Just now, extremerotary said:

Just adding my 2-cents in here; It's not up to 2600hz to build this. Every carrier charges VoIP providers on a per-location basis. So even if 2600hz built something to make it look like it was all one, they would be getting charged on the backend so that wouldn't make sense from a business perspective. However, i know for a fact that since Ray Baum's Act, Bandwidth,com (3 day outage, i know i know) has been actively working on a dynamic E911 addressing service. In this way, 2600 could pass additional, more specific data to the PSAP using SIP headers (Like "room 121") instead of requiring an e911 registration per room. Last I heard they were close. Might be ready at this point. Bandwidth wasn't the only carrier looking into this, so since 2600hz aggregates multiple outbound carriers, i'm sure they are working with one to develop this dynamic e911 farther and bring that to their customers!

Actually we are already finishing testing and planning to release the dynamic address feature. It's not just a bandwidth.com thing. You can pass the geo-location lat/long or a full address at the time of dialing 911.

 

[extremerotary]

Just now, Darren Schreiber said:

Actually we are already finishing testing and planning to release the dynamic address feature. It's not just a bandwidth.com thing. You can pass the geo-location lat/long or a full address at the time of dialing 911.

 

I figured it wasn't just them. You're doing a huge service for your customers and making it much more cost-effective for clients to go after hotels, schools, and some retirement homes with this type of feature. Awesome to hear!

[Darren Schreiber]

Just now, extremerotary said:

I figured it wasn't just them. You're doing a huge service for your customers and making it much more cost-effective for clients to go after hotels, schools, and some retirement homes with this type of feature. Awesome to hear!

Yup that's the plan. This DDoS thing kinda crimped our schedule, but should be back on track next month I hope.

[extremerotary]

4 minutes ago, Darren Schreiber said:

Yup that's the plan. This DDoS thing kinda crimped our schedule, but should be back on track next month I hope.

Can't even imagine my friend. It affected everyone I know in one way or another. Keep up the good work. Your community appreciates it!

[Logicwrath]

Any updates on this?