[VoiceOps] 911 backup solution

[Ian Blenke]

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Keith Leclaire <kleclaire at mywdt.com> wrote:
> 911 Enable from Connexion will accept these calls and route them to a
> national call center so they can then be handled properly and routed to
> the appropriate PSAP. There is of course a hefty fee for calls from
> unprovisioned ANI's, its something like $50 or $75 per call and they will
> contact you if you send too many of these calls as in theory every
> endpoint should be recognizable and provisioned in the database. But as a
> backup last, last resort service I would suspect there wouldn't be too
> many such calls.

If you use Intrado, their ECRC serves that same purpose. Similar cost
per call as well.

We use Intrado for all 911 calls, and we try to forward to their SIP
selective routers first to try and reach a PSAP directly, and fail
over to their ECRC over PSTN trunks if both gateways refuse the call
or are otherwise unreachable.

The most fun was qualifying to peer with Intrado's selective routers.

We have been using Intrado now for a couple of years now with very few issues.

Having considered DashCS (bandwidth.com) for 911 service, I believe
they offer something similar to Intrado's ECRC.

Background: I work for a Video Relay Service provider for the deaf and
hard of hearing. Our customers are already talking to an ASL video
interpreter, who acts as part of the "wire" translating calls, and
also does everything possible to assist 911 calls.

We also have an older antiquated backup system (from a few years ago
where customers did not have 10 digit numbers on their videophones)
that allows us to try and find a PSAP front-door phone number, but the
accuracy of that approach long ago forced us to forward all calls to
Intrado's ECRC instead. It really is amazing how many PSAP front-door
numbers point at a fax number, a disconnected number, or a number
pointed at some clerk's desk at city hall.

-- 
- Ian Blenke <ian at blenke.com> http://ian.blenke.com