Electro/Telecom Industry Trends
June 2004
Q&A on E911 with Steve Whitesell
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As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continues to roll out its Enhanced 911 (E911) rules, the pressure is on VoIP providers to support these requirements. E911 requires traditional wireless carriers to be able to report the phone number and location of a handset being used to make an emergency call. Under debate right now is how this ruling will apply to voice over IP (VoIP) providers. Steve Whitesell, who chairs TR-41, the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA) User Premises Telecommunications Requirements committee, comments on some of the challenges VoIP is facing with E911.
Q: How are TIA’s standards addressing E911?
TIA-689-A describes what multiline terminal systems, such as PBXs, need to do to support E911. TSB-146 is a bulletin that provides some guidelines about what needs to be done in terms of providing E911 support for VoIP in an enterprise environment, but not for the residential environment. The 41.4 subcommittee is working on a revision.
Q: How does the 41.4 subcommittee create these standards and bulletins?
We are always looking to work together with other groups to advance the technology and find solutions to problems such as VoIP support of E911. At our May meeting, we heard a presentation on a new link layer discovery protocol (LLDP) being finalized by the IEEE 802 local area network folks. This protocol has the possibility of adding several capabilities for VoIP equipment, including an additional method for providing E911 support. As a result, our TR-41.4 subcommittee decided to take on a new project in this area.
Q: How can VoIP support E911 requirements?
If the handset knows where it is, it can report that when you make a 911 call. Other than that, it gets very difficult, because conceptually, if I have a handset and I go on a trip, I take the handset with me. If I have VoIP service, I plug into the Ethernet and I’m off and running. Where I am is not related to where I live necessarily.
Q: How are the enterprise guidelines addressing that issue?
With an enterprise, you’re talking about the equivalent of a PBX or something similar. So there’s more or less a fixed location for the device that actually interfaces with the Internet, and that location may be identifiable using a network management protocol. Hoever, there may be handsets that are moving around in an office building and it may be difficult to figure out what floor or what corner of the building the person having a heart attack is in. So then you still may need that sort of technology where the handset can learn where it is.
If you’re talking about something that has an Ethernet-type connection that plugs in, then if you know where the wires run, you can know where it is plugged in. If you’re talking about something that has a wireless connection, a cordless handset for example, then that is not necessarily true. But you can probably know where the access point that the handset is talking to is located. Then that will probably get you within a couple hundred feet of the handset.
Q: Aren’t most enterprises on wireline networks?
Most are today, but that may not be true in the future.
Q: What recommendations are covered in TSB-146?
It talks about determining caller location and compares a network-based solution with a set-based solution. A set-based solution obviously requires more hardware, either using GPS, which is the technology being used in cell phones, or some kind of beacon signal. It also talks about the application of Bluetooth technology. It basically suggests some possibilities without recommending one over another.
Q: Is anyone addressing residential E911 concerns?
I don’t know of anyone that is particularly addressing that. I think that it definitely will have to be done, and I think that 41.4 is the right place for that to be done.