[VoiceOps] Misrouting 911 Calls?

Sat Jan 8 18:11:36 EST 2022

I filed a complaint with the FCC about a year ago.
The FCC reached out to Comcast and Comcast reached back out to me.
Their response was that we would basically have to purchase ~200 numbers
(one for each extension on our system), set our outbound 911 caller ID to
those numbers, and then provide Comcast with a list of mappings between
phone numbers and addresses.
It would have added a huge tracking burden for IT as well as increased our
bill by about $2,500 over the contract term.

It's all moot now as BulkVS cost less than $50 to set up, we've already had
one successful 911 call from an office that was continually misrouted by
Comcast, and the contract is up "soon".

-A

On Sat, Jan 8, 2022 at 2:37 PM Mary Lou Carey <marylou at backuptelecom.com>
wrote:

> I was just going to say the same thing. If you give Comcast or any
> carrier a chance to fix it and they can't/won't/don't, then you have to
> escalate it above their heads.
>
> The 911 network has always operated separately from the PSTN world for a
> reason. That's because misroutes can result in people dying! Carriers
> can get in HUGE trouble if they don't address routing issues immediately
> and VOIP carriers can also get in trouble if they don't allow the
> customer a method of updating their location themselves.
>
>
> MARY LOU CAREY
> BackUP Telecom Consulting
> Office: 615-791-9969
> Cell: 615-796-1111
>
> On 2022-01-05 09:08 AM, Mike Hammett wrote:
> > Escalate to the PUC and ETSBs.
> >
> > Unfortunately, with companies like that, honey doesn't work. You need
> > vinegar.
> >
> > -----
> > Mike Hammett
> > Intelligent Computing Solutions
> > http://www.ics-il.com
> >
> > Midwest Internet Exchange
> > http://www.midwest-ix.com
> >
> > -------------------------
> >
> > From: "Aaron C. de Bruyn via VoiceOps" <voiceops at voiceops.org>
> > To: "Paul Timmins" <paul at timmins.net>
> > Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 6:07:52 PM
> > Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Misrouting 911 Calls?
> >
> > 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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> >>> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
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> >>
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