[VoiceOps] Misrouting 911 Calls?

[Aaron C. de Bruyn]

>From my first message:
> Early termination would incur a ~$35,000 bill.

They're paying just over $2k/mo for service and have ~18 months left on the
contract.  Apparently Comcast gives a slight discount from the normal
monthly cost if you terminate early, but it's not much.

-A


On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 7:38 PM Peter Rad <peter at 4isps.com> wrote:

> why not move that SIP trunk elsewhere? Like Intelepeer or Vonage or RNG or
> Sangoma or anyone who would handle the E911?
>
>
>
> On 1/4/2022 7:07 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via VoiceOps wrote:
>
> 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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