E-911 as Tricky on Corporate as Service Provider Networks, Not as Regulated
SAN FRANCISCO -- Private corporate phone networks seem safe for now from FCC VoIP E-911 rules -- but only because the agency is relaxed about it, not because the regulations were written to apply to service providers alone, an expert said Tues. “The current administration isn’t very rigorous” in enforcing E-911 or any other rules, attorney Andrew Brown said at the VoiceCon show here. And federal telecom bills stalled over net neutrality wouldn’t impose E-911 duties on end users, either, he said.
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Mobile VoIP is “interesting and scary” from a 911 angle, Brown said. PBX was more complex than residential phones for 911, because a user is hidden behind a central phone number, but with VoIP it really “gets messy” because “you have almost no idea where that individual is physically,” Brown said.
E-9ll laws have passed in 11 states -- mostly in the east, south or Midwest, and bills are pending in 4, panelist Tony Maier, CEO of vendor RedSky Technologies, said. “You've got to get out in front” of a regulatory wave, he said: “Look at what happened to the service providers; they had only 6 months to comply” with the FCC’s E-911 requirements.
But Brown downplayed the regulatory threat, saying only Ill. and Me. have “aggressive” laws and only Alaska is working on one. Most state laws, in regard to corporate networks, require transmission of location data specifying a certain area in square feet or a floor of a multifloor building, so emergency responders reach the correct place, Brown said. The laws don’t cover wireless LAN phones, he replied to a query: “The people who write this stuff don’t know what a wireless LAN is… Basically the wireless LAN technology is way ahead of the legislation.”
Companies with E-911 systems typically meet the toughest applicable state law, Maier said. This is easier to manage than combining different systems, and it makes no sense to them to treat employees differently by location on emergency- services access, he said. But some companies do tailor compliance by state, Brown said.
Other likely sources of legal problems for companies in the event of a 911 failure are common-law negligence suits and workplace safety claims, far likelier to be filed than to succeed, Brown said: “The worst thing really is the publicity your organization gets.”
With VoIP’s advent, national and international computer standards groups have moved onto 911 turf once the exclusive domain of the National Emergency Number Assn. and the Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials, Maier said: “The next 6-9 months, there’s going to be lots of standards-based information that comes up.”
Squeezed corporate telecom budgets and the odds against a crisis make it hard to get companies to study and act on E- 911, the speakers said. They suggested lighting a fire under advocates with entities. Both cited security -- which has an interest in tracking locations of employees and devices, and often has a growing budget -- and legal. IT departments also can be rallied, Maier said.
A practical reality is that workers hate the chore of updating location data when they use softphones, especially when traveling, Brown said. This can be eased by offering drop-down menus listing places they often work, such as home, Maier said. But addresses entered must be checked, not only for accuracy but to weed out “vanity addresses” that don’t match official street numbers in 911 databases, he said. But IP databases often are updated only every 24 hours, Maier said. Plastering portable devices with stickers declaring their 911 capabilities “sounds stupid,” Brown said, but his clients have found it highly effective.