[cisco-voip] e911 & Cisco Emergency Responder ?

[Ed Leatherman]

Alot of this probably differs from state to state or country to country.. I
hope this helps though

The way we handle this here is break locations down based on size or layout
- whatever makes the most sense from the perspective of an ambulance or fire
truck having the find the location. so in most cases we just have 1 floor =
1 location, but in some cases for very large buildings we have multiple
locations per floor, and for some very small locations (residential house
size) we just have 1 location per building. I believe there is a square foot
requirement per location in our state E911 code. Also the PSAP here has very
strict guidelines on what goes in each field in there database regarding
street address etc - it doesnt always match the USPS mailing address.

Locations are pre-configured in cisco ER usually based on switchport but can
also be by IP addr or dn. The finer grain your locations are, the smaller
they are and the more of them, resulting in more ELINs and more cost (each
ELIN is its own telephone number that is essentially consumed). So someone
has to decide how granular the information needs to be versus how many ELINs
you want to pay for and how many slots in a PS-ALI you want to use up and
also pay for.

Generally for us once a location is in the ER database its there for good,
so there isnt a terrible amount of turnover for that and we only need to add
to the database when there is a new building coming online with VoIP. When
we do have to update the PS-ALI, it's a chore - special file formats and
uploads to the verizon server via dialup/SecureID/kermit. the thing that we
do have to be careful of is when people move patch cables in closets that
could potentially move a port to a different emergency location. I dont have
an easy solution other than you have to take control of these areas and make
sure changes get handled properly so that your locations are correct.

I hope that helps, the CER docs are a good place to start but i'm sure
someone can help out if you have a particulr question about it.

On 7/28/06, TechGuy <techguy+voip at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a basic e911 question, particularly in regards to Cisco
> Emergency Responder.
>
> Is the primary idea behind rolling out e911 is to pin point actual
> physical location, say like all the way down to where a person or
> phone is located in a cube?
>
> Thats what I am being asked to look into.  A solution that provides
> cube location if you will.  We have large locations all over the
> state, some buildings with multi floors, and so on.  I have heard and
> read examples of e911 being used for identifying buildings and
> locations when using VoIP, I have heard of it being used for
> identifying buildings and even floors within in a building.
>
> I am a bit confused however as to how you do this and particularly in
> regards to mapping things all the way down to the cube or something.
> It would be fine I guess in an environment that was not dynamic and
> phones could be locked down so they couldn't move.  Some how match the
> mac of the phone to the port on the switch, which you would have to
> map to the cube or something.  I would think administering this would
> be a nightmare since things can easily change.  Someone could change
> something in a wiring closet, or move phones or something.
>
> Just wondering how people are doing this, if they are?   Its something
> management seems to really want to move on, and I am bit unsure about
> it all.  Guess I need to read a little more on the emergency responder
> product from Cisco and that might help.  We are an all Cisco shop,
> data and telephone.  So emergency responder appears to be the logical
> next step.  Really just don't get how people are managing the
> locations and the changes, guess there is a way to automate some of it
> as long as your wiring closets dont get messed with.  If you know cube
> xyz is always patched to switch abc, port 4 then its not that
> difficult to imagine a way to script pulling the mac table off a
> switch and seeing what mac is associated to what port I guess.
>
> Ah well, just wanted to throw it out there here from others and maybe
> get pointed to some resources others have utilized in this very issue.
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-- 
Ed Leatherman
Senior Voice Engineer
West Virginia University
Telecommunications and Network Operations
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