[Noisebridge-discuss] Little red payphone digression into 911

[Christie Dudley]

The number I have in mind is specifically staffed 24x7, has emergency
recording, and is what's recommended in the first aid/CPR classes put on by
the paramedics association.  (In the city of SF it's 415-553-0123)  The
drawbacks include having to dial a full number that's different in each
jurisdiction, your location information is not sent in, and there's not
priority infrastructure in place in the event of call congestion.

Because the major benefit of 911 service is that it sends in your location,
it makes a lot of sense that moving caused problems - if you had an
emergency in the new location from the old number, they'd go to your old
place without even asking you.

There are a few cheap providers who work around the tax and surcharge and
cumbersome interconnect business by offering phone numbers without 911
services.

Those who voted in SF this past election should have noticed a phone usage
tax on their ballot.  The city is restructuring the way it taxes.  I'm a
little miffed that folks didn't notice it was changing the way that was
working and putting the money from that into the general fund instead of
continuing to use it to exclusively fund 911 service but that's the way of
politics.

Christie

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:50 PM, Shannon Clark <shannon.clark at gmail.com>wrote:

> Years ago I used Vonage for a few years and I remember that e911 was one
> (of many) things which really seriously caused Vonage problems and expenses.
> Especially for customers such as myself who were thinking about using it as
> a full alternative to a landline - getting 911 to work smoothly had all
> sorts of headaches. Wasn't impossible if you registered the location (as I
> recall) but got tricky if you ever wanted to move your phone (which was,
> after all, one of the points of VOIP).
> I'm a bit surprised there aren't more advanced solutions yet - since this
> has been an issue (and I think a legal requirement in the US at least) for
> quite a few years now.
>
> some quick googleing turned up:
>
> http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/voip911.html - "Interconnected" VIOP
> mandated requirements around e911
>
> looking at the many other links Google shows on the topic, seems like there
> are many vendors offering enterprise/carrier grade solutions, but I didn't
> see any open source or free solutions - but perhaps when we work with some
> provider to get an inbound number that provider can give us some options?
>
> Definitely still a quite unsolved problem with many issues (I think the
> solution of calling a regular number not the real 911 has problems - such as
> sometimes those numbers are not staffed 24/7 etc)
>
> but I'm not a telcom guy so I'll leave it in the hands of those who are,
>
> Shannon
>
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Christie Dudley <longobord at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> The 911 service is the most expensive part of VoIP service.  I know people
>> who have gotten around this by mapping the 911 extension in the voip server
>> to dial out to the "urgent" line for the police department (which is what
>> they recommend using from a cell phone rather than actually calling 911).
>>
>> Christie
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Shannon Clark <shannon.clark at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Adding an interesting (perhaps randomized?) ringer seems like indeed an
>>> opportunity.
>>> I'd vote for getting 911 working (which may require some registration to
>>> make e911 work over VOIP?) and for keeping the 9 and 1 buttons in their
>>> usual places - seems likely that if we have a phone clearly available sooner
>>> or later it will need to be used for a 911 call.
>>>
>>> Shannon
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> You can't learn what you think you already know.
>>
>
>
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>


-- 
You can't learn what you think you already know.
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