TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril VOIP Not Part of Emergency

Re: New Technology Poses 911 Peril VOIP Not Part of Emergency

Dave Garland (dave.garland@wizinfo.com)
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 00:49:17 -0500

It was a dark and stormy night when Justin Time <a_user2000@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> The point is that CID can be blocked and is not guaranteed to be
> delivered. The ANI information the 911 centers use is pretty much the
> same data that feeds the telephone company billing system. That
> information cannot be blocked or opted out of providing. Of course,

Sheesh. The point is to have the 911 center receive location info on
a VOIP caller under *most* circumstances. If the caller wants to
conceal their location (e.g. by blocking) they wouldn't be calling 911
for service to their location anyhow, would they? And the worst-case
fallback is, to pre-911 days, when the caller has to tell them where
they are calling from. The vast majority of callers, after all, DO
know where they are.

Of course it's not perfect. There will be people who fall between the
cracks. Of course it can be defeated. I can think of a few ways to
defeat or falsify ANI info too (and if you read this group regularly,
you probably can also).

I don't think the special case is particularly likely. But if you do,
make the alternate 911 line an 800 number, which receives ANI. Easy,
eh?

There comes a point where the money spent covering any possible
eventuality greatly exceeds the value. A friend of mine who works in
public health bemoans the fact that the "war on terror" spends close
to a billion dollars in anthrax-detection gear, to save an estimated 4
lives per year, when the same amount of money could save thousands,
even tens of thousands, of lives if spent on less sexy health
measures. This is like that. In real life, there's always a "close
enough".

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