[VoiceOps] Misrouting 911 Calls?

[Aaron C. de Bruyn]

When I handed Comcast a list of phone numbers years ago, they said there
would be no problem porting them over or using them.
That was it.

Then after the service was installed, someone mentioned "a few of the
numbers will be RCF'd", but we wouldn't have a problem using them.

Then 3 months into using the service (after our cancellation period expired
and we were locked-in), we suddenly started having problems with the RCF'd
numbers being re-written.

No less than 30 calls to Comcast over the years has resulted in widely
different responses including:
* Ok, we just changed an option in the AdTran to allow you to specify your
own caller ID, everything should work now (it doesn't)
* Give us a list of phone numbers and associated addresses so we can update
our e911 information (they respond with "done!", not "we can't set e911 for
phone number xxx-yyy-zzzz)
* I'm going to escalate this (followed by nothing happening and the case
gets magically closed)

After talking with Comcast this morning, I had a rep send me what they had
listed for addresses associated with phone numbers...and unsurprisingly
found that they had reset everything to the address of our SIP trunk
service.  None of our offices have valid 911 contact info.

They're allegedly in the middle of updating the list again, but I'm not
holding my breath.

It's Comcast's job to provide phone service and 911 routing for this
client.  They shouldn't be re-writing anything.  They weren't in the
beginning, but I'm guessing it has to do with STIR/SHAKEN.  I'm vaguely
familiar with it, but I'm not a telco or a phone service provider.  Just
someone they hired to clean up their FreePBX phone mess. ;)

-A

On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 3:01 PM Paul Timmins <paul at timmins.net> wrote:

> I'm going to be the unpopular one here, and point out that Comcast is not
> really responsible to route 911 calls for you when you use numbers that
> they don't provide. For the cost of an hour of an attorney's time, you
> could just set up trunking to basically anyone else to handle those
> offnet/off circuit numbers and the 911 routing for those numbers.
>
> On 1/4/22 1:30 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via VoiceOps wrote:
>
> One of my clients has a large SIP trunk with Comcast based out of
> Washington State.
>
> They have all their offices across Oregon and Washington hooked into a
> FreePBX phone server that is attached to the Comcast SIP trunk.
>
> 911 calls *constantly* get misrouted to the local PSAP where the SIP trunk
> lives.
>
> I must have called Comcast 30 times over the last few years to try and get
> this addressed, but Comcast flat-out refuses to fix the issue.
>
> The short answer is that Comcast refuses to fix it.  In some (but not all)
> cases, our phone numbers are RCF'd numbers, so they don't actually exist on
> the trunk...and Comcast forcibly re-writes them to our 'main' number...and
> then routes the 911 call incorrectly.  In other cases, we have provided
> Comcast with the e911 information, they say it's updated, and then we find
> out months later (when an office dials 911 during an emergency) that it's
> still not correct.
>
> Not only does this affect 911 calls, but also customers who get the
> re-written caller ID and have no idea which office called them.
>
> The "easy" solution is to ditch Comcast and move to a provider that
> doesn't play the RCF and caller-ID-rewrite games.  Unfortunately my client
> is locked into their Comcast contract for another ~18 months.  Early
> termination would incur a ~$35,000 bill.
>
> Is there a list of PSAP numbers somewhere so I can set up an internal
> redirect to the PSAP 10-digit number?  I know those 10-digit numbers are
> guarded like Fort Knox, so I'm betting this option isn't very realistic.
>
> Maybe a separate service provider that can just handle 911 calls without
> "owning" my client's phone numbers?
>
> Any other thoughts on how I can route around Comcast brain damage?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -A
>
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