FCC ENCOURAGES INDUSTRY TO HELP DEVELOP 911 SOLUTIONS FOR VoIP

The summit was the first in a series organized by the Commission’s Internet Policy Working Group. The group was created by Powell last year (CD Dec 2 p1) to assist the agency in identifying, evaluating and addressing policy issues arising as telecom services move to Internet-based platforms.

“Access to 911 and E911 is one of the more complex issues we face in the new network,” Powell said: “As telecommunications networks migrate to the brave new world of IP-enabled services, we cannot afford to make wrong policy choices in this area.” He urged the industry to “share your expertise with the Commission.”

FCC Comrs. Copps and Adelstein said industry and regulators need to work together to resolve the challenges brought about by VoIP’s emergence. Copps commended Powell for bringing industry and regulators together at the summit: “I think this is exactly the kind of outreach, exactly public sector -- private sector dialogue that we need to be having.” Said Adelstein: “When industry and policy makers and the public safety community all get together, we can do incredible things. And we need just that level of collaboration in order to address the needs of emergency services over Internet-based communications. We can’t let public safety concerns slip off.”

While taking an approach of imposing minimum regulations on IP-based communications, FCC Comr. Abernathy said 911/E911 was the area where the Commission “clearly” needed to intervene. Adelstein said he supported preempting any regulatory constraints to encourage VoIP development, “but we also need to remain very mindful of privacy implications of all of this… We've got to make sure that such a hands-off approach doesn’t mean that we are undercutting the safety of consumers. We've got to carefully balance those considerations.”

Abernathy said the challenges in the 911 area were “more technical than policy-driven… It’s unclear how the PSAPs are going to be able to locate and use call-back information if that’s where we are headed.” Copps said some “questions that need to be tackled” included “how do we get scalable solutions, so that when there are many callers they can be… connected to the PSAP, and how do we get to an environment where external addresses don’t match IP addresses.”

Columbia U. Prof. Henning Schulzrinne said “the 3 core components to be replicated” were: (1) Identifying emergency calls. (2) Determining the right PSAP. (3) Delivering caller location to PSAP. “Everything else is a matter of implementation,” he said. He said some technical problems with current “1970s technology” were that: (1) “CAMA trunks include long call setup delays.” (2) The current system had “limited ability to transfer information.” (3) It was “tied to ILEC rate centers and other PSTN routing artifacts.” (4) It was “hard to move PSAPs on short notice,” for example, in case of emergency evacuation.

International aspects shouldn’t be ignored when trying to apply 911/E911 to VoIP, Schulzrinne said: “We assume that everything is just a national thing; that we don’t have to worry about it.” But, he said “truly, the fire department here is not going to respond to an emergency in Mexico or France. However, users do visit and do expect 911 services to work.”

“Internet-based communications, like VoIP, can open up whole new emergency response and medical monitoring services that don’t even exist today,” Adelstein said: “We've got to make sure that this exciting new opportunity doesn’t get caught up” in a wrong decision. Abernathy agreed: “I think that IP networks may make it possible to deliver significantly enhanced information to first responders and other emergency personnel.”

VoIP could greatly benefit users with disabilities, Schulzrinne said: “I believe that one of the strongest promises of IP-based 911 services is that we can do much better job technically of supporting all media, text-based signaling… video, or, say, sign language… I believe we should [try based on] experience technically to chose solutions, which are, to the extent possible, commercial official systems.”

On the public safety part of the VoIP notice the FCC has released, Adelstein said: “The item does a good job discussing how IP enabled services provide an opportunity for technological improvement that can enhance the capabilities of PSAPs and first responders.” He said consumers expected VoIP telephony to have the same capabilities as plain telecom service.

Copps urged the Commission to return to fundamentals. He quoted the first sentence of the Communications Act, which he said was written to make available “efficient telecom service for the purpose of national defense… and promoting safety of life and property to use of wire and radio communication,” saying: “That admonition, 70 years old now, I don’t think can be more timely in the wake of September 11.”