nanog mailing list archives

Re: potpourri (Re: Clearwire May Block VoIP Competitors )


From: Michael.Dillon () radianz com
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 12:34:13 +0100


most american PBX's don't have 911 as a dialplan.  you have to dial 
9-911.
this isn't a violation of the law as long as there's a warning 
labelabout it.
but go ahead and visit a few large companies and tell me how many such 
warning
labels you see.  as an added boon, note that campuses with blocks of1000 
DIDs
end up using the corporate headquarters or the address of the PBX as the 
911
locator for all 1000 (or 10000 or whatever) extensions, making the fire 
dept
have to select from among 20 different buildings by looking for smoke 
plumes.

Why can't we have VoIP phones with built-in GPS receivers and a built-in
911 dialplan that makes the phone transmit your coordinates along with the
emergency call? That solves the campus problem. And since VoIP phones are
nearly as portable as cellphones, this makes good sense. If you take your
VoIP phone to grandma's house at Thanksgiving, plug into her broadband 
router
and need to call for assistance, it would just work.

Of course there is the little matter of a national E-911 center to accept
the calls, decode the GPS info, and dispatch the call correctly...

--Michael Dillon


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