NRIC TO TACKLE E911 ISSUES, BEST PRACTICES FOR VoIP, WIRELESS

“We're asking questions regarding near-term deployment as well as long-term evolution, including the use of packet technology to enhance emergency service functionality,” Powell said. Last year, the FCC said it would recharter NRIC VI with a focus that would shift to emergency services and continue work on homeland security, interoperability and reliability issues. NRIC VI adopted best practices for enhancing reliability and security of telecom networks during emergencies. Donahue said NRIC VII would continue to refine these homeland security best practices and work on new ones for wireless, public data network and broadband services.

Donahue said this NRIC would focus on emergency communications in 2 ways: (1) Solving short-term deployment issues. (2) Looking to integrate new technologies and capabilities into the existing emergency communications architecture, including geolocation, graphics, images, sound, text, video. “We all recognize that we might not be able to get there with existing architectures. So we must challenge conventions,” he said.

“We are engaged in a war against terror,” Powell said. As a result, the FCC has asked NRIC VII to continue “to examine the homeland security best practices that have been available for the past year, follow up on issues that were identified by the previous Council and improve the best practices to better fortify our critical communications infrastructure.”

Comr. Copps voiced concerns several times during the morning-long meeting that NRIC best practices for wireless reliability, homeland security and broadband deployment be implemented. “I don’t believe that can be done without them being closely monitored and constantly evaluated and updated when necessary,” he said. “Best practices don’t always implement themselves.” While work on network reliability has moved forward since Sept. 11, Copps said: “We have a long ways to go in building systems interoperability and in making sure back-up systems exist if one system goes down.” Citing visits he has had over the past few months with emergency responders, Copps said there’s still progress to be made in attaining systems interoperability and “probably not much time to get there.” He noted there are near-term challenges that have “dogged us for too long.” Among these he cited identifying ways to pinpoint location information to public safety answering points (PSAPs) for calls originating from multi-line phone systems.

The NRIC VII charter tasks the 56-member Council to come up with a report on near-term emergency communications best practices by Dec. 16, 2005, including recommendations on: (1) Accuracy requirements for location information and how to verify that accuracy requirements are met. (2) A consistent format for information PSAPs receive from E911 Phase 1 and 2 callers. “This format must resolve any inconsistencies that would otherwise result from using vendor-specific formats for transmitting information from mobile positioning centers to PSAPs,” the charter said. (3) The types of information to be sent to callers when major E911 network elements fail. (4) “Major traffic concentration points” in E911 architectures, such as selective routing databases and Automatic Location Information databases. The Council is tasked with crafting best practices to reduce traffic concentration where it has been determined to be too high. (5) How to extend E911 to satellite communications. (6) How to provide location information to PSAPs for calls from multi-line phone systems.

Long-term for E911, the charter asks NRIC to recommend whether IP technology should be used to improve E911 services and, if so, how. For this part of its work, the Council is to outline “specific architecture properties that emergency communications networks are to provide by the year 2010 along with a generic network architecture that meets those properties.”

The charter asks NRIC to examine whether IP technologies should be used to get information to and from PSAPs. It also asks for a recommendation on what additional text and data information emergency communications networks should be able to receive, including instant-messaging, e-mail, short message service; pictures from cellphones; paging information; data from Intelligent Vehicle Systems. The charter seeks a recommendation on generic architectures that will let PSAPs receive VoIP E911 calls and related caller location information. Under the charter, this NRIC will assess the “feasibility and advisability” of having a national/regional PSAP to process overflow traffic efficiently from local PSAPs and “to provide an interface for national security connectivity.”

In other areas, NRIC VII is chartered with drafting a report on the long-term network requirements for transmitting emergency services information to emergency responders beyond the scope of E911 networks. The charter said this would include target architectures able to transmit information about an emergency from PSAPs to first responders. NRIC also must define long-term communications networks needed to transmit data from E911 calls to the Dept. of Homeland Security. In part, this will entail NRIC examining the role of 911 and E911 in major disasters and for terrorist attacks.

Work that NRIC will undertake this time will involve cybersecurity permeating all aspects of networks, including 911 systems and 911 interoperability, said Bill Hancock, vp- cybersecurity for Savvis. “As we go toward 911 interoperability and we start to use IP networking, the concept of using domain name services and different types of structural components become a very big problem for cybersecurity,” Hancock said. “If these components are penetrated, then at that point that component can become liable to stopping IP communications altogether. As a result, we have to look at all the different parts and pieces that make up the 911 systems.”

The concentration on wireless by this NRIC will include 3G, cellular technology, Wi-Fi, Hancock said. In addition, NRIC VII will work on best practices involving “blended attacks,” Hancock said. Such attacks can be defined as a physical attack combined with a cyber attack to disable infrastructure, such as an ATM system, he said. “It is something we believe is going to happen,” Hancock said. “We believe there is going to be a terrorism operation that eventually is going to take advantage of something like this.” This area is in its “infancy” and best practices here will also focus on protection of critical infrastructure systems such as water and power, he said. Best practices will also focus on spam, VoIP, wireless networks and IP- centric systems, he said.

Steve Marzolf, pres.-National Assn. of State E911 Coordinators, outlined challenges that PSAPs now face under current E911 systems. He cited variations in the format of Automatic Location Identification data, which require 911 operators “to hunt around the screen for information. If the information is found, it’s difficult for them to tell exactly what the data means since there’s no standard way of identifying a Phase 1 call versus a Phase 2 call.” Unlike wireline calls, emergency operators also may not be able to use the automatic redial portion of their system when fielding wireless 911 calls, Marzolf said.

“PSAPs also struggle to understand how much they can rely on the location data that’s provided in Phase 2,” Marzolf said. “The lack of a standard for accuracy testing leaves many PSAPs wondering what is the performance of each carrier in their area.” He said PSAPs want to move beyond the sphere of the E911 rules to provide operators with the tools they need to do their jobs.

“My biggest fear is of the technologies yet to come and what their impact will be” on PSAPs, Marzolf said. Emergency calls already are coming in via special 10-digit numbers from telematics companies, alarm companies and others, he said. “We can soon add VoIP as well as satellite carriers to that list,” he said. “It is very difficult for the PSAPs to manage their workload when emergency calls are being received so many different ways and from so many different sources.” A major telecom carrier in Va. recently sent a letter to every PSAP in the state announcing that it would soon provide VoIP service, he said. The carrier, which Marzolf didn’t name, asked PSAPs to provide a 10-digit emergency number to route these calls to emergency centers. “Unfortunately, carriers received a negative reaction from many of the PSAPs and in some cases a downright refusal by the PSAP to take the calls,” Marzolf said. It’s not that PSAPs don’t want to take these calls, he said. “It’s out of frustration that they cannot continue to support a connection to the PSAP that delivers such a poor service to the citizen.”