999, 112 and VoIP - 16/12/2010
Posted by Kevin Box on Mon, Dec 20, 2010 @ 07:33 AM
The issue of emergency calls and hosted VoIP telephone services
has been a topic of much heated debate and discussion. It has been a source of much work for the industry and Ofcom – but to what avail? Read on.
The problem - if it is a problem is that a hosted VoIP service is location independent. That is a handset in the hosted VoIP world neither know nor cares where it is. The handset uses the World Wide Web to communicate and so a call can originate anywhere. If the phone connects to the old fashioned telephone network, known as the PSTN (also known as the POTS network or TDM network) then it will do so through a gateway but this will not be where the call originates.
The old fashioned networks - both PSTN and mobile know exactly where the call originates and can use this information to notify the emergency services where a 999 or 112 call originates. However VoIP prevents the emergency services from getting this information.
And whilst we are looking for problems, a VoIP handset usually requires a mains electricity supply to function. This means that if the mains fail then so does the phone. There are some VoIP phones that take power over the computer network but even so with power down the network may well fail as well.
By historical accident the old fashioned PSTN network is self powered. It supplies a small amount of power to phones connected to it and hence they work irrespective of the mains supply. Of course, if you want any intelligence in your phone then it requires power and most modern phones do.
So VoIP has two problems in the event of an emergency - lack of location information and lack of power potentially.
After innumerable meetings and lots of nice fees paid to people by Ofcom and Europe it was decided that everyone should post warnings everywhere that the phones had limitations. Problem solved one would have thought.
However the location “problem” will just not go away. In the new world VoIP phones are both portable and fully mobile, they do not give out their location. (Cue terrorist paranoia).
So currently, as of 2011 a 999 call originated on a VoIP network will present a flag to the emergency services prompting the operator to ask for a location. A better solution was seen to be a signal identifying the physical address of the phone (for instance 1 Acacia Gradens). However the mobility aspect means that the phone’s location would simply not be that presented.
In the real world where everyone has a mobile the issue isn’t really that huge. However, if the plans are pursued, then questionnaires may be sent out asking people to identify the location of their phones for a database. Fortunately at present Ofcom seems to have forgotten about the issue and providing the EU has other things to worry about it seems probable they will continue to ignore it.
Written by David Hill, Chairman, Cloudnet
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Cloudnet supplies business phone systems and services to SMEs and start-ups. Its Cloudnet Connect system offers the advantages of no capital expenditure necessary to run a professional PBX and dramatically lower running costs. Cloudnet has developed a dedicated voice over IP (VoIP) network providing free calls within its network and cheap rate calls outside of the Cloudnet network. The company also offers CLASS, a live answering service and has introduced mobile VoIP solutions. Cloudnet is privately financed and started trading in March 2009.