Voice-Over-IP Can Complicate Schools' Enhanced 911 Systems

Apr 6, 2007 2:46 PM

Schools should have accurate, location-specific enhanced 911 (E911) systems on campus. Regardless of any legal liability or regulatory reasons that may compel these systems, safety concerns are more than enough to justify them.

Now, with the availability of IP-enabled telephone networks, education institutions are on the cusp of a revolution in the way campus E911 programs are managed, according to an article in the February 2007 issue of American School & University, a sister publication.

Colleges and universities, with sprawling campuses and many on- and off-campus buildings networked back through the primary PBX switch, present particular challenges for 911 systems. Often, the remote sites need to route to a public safety answering point (PSAP) other than the main PSAP, compounding the difficulty of determining the exact location of an emergency caller.

Network administrators know that IP-enabled voice systems have brought many converged network benefits to colleges and universities. However, they have added another level of complexity for campuses that are managing or planning a holistic E911 program for campus phones.

The evolution of IP telephony can make campus E911 programs much more dynamic and accurate. But at the same time, the programs require additional knowledge and management capabilities, especially if station information being compiled is coming from a traditional multi-line PBX system and an IP call manager.

The configuration of the environment will determine the design and installation of an E911 solution.

For example, is the configuration a fully enclosed VoIP environment, or is it a hybrid environment using both VoIP and traditional telephones? Communications professionals will need to determine, for instance, how discovery and management of the hard/soft phone and its location within the enterprise are mapped and reported within the system.

Procedures need to be established for the private switch/automatic location identification (PS/ALI) database upload to regional E911 data services centers. Assurances of proper call routing of a 911 call are needed, with callback capability to the desktop.

Some of these capabilities are built into VoIP PBX platforms, but others are lacking. One platform may create subnets for clusters of telephone devices, and another may detect location identity to the desktop. All IP-enabled issues are in addition to the traditional challenges associated with running a campus E911 program.

One problem with traditional enterprise phone systems is that location information typically is entered manually. The information is only as reliable as what was typed into the station-management software.

Without special systems in place, there often is no dynamic or automatic updating of the station-management software even when moves, adds or changes are performed in the field. Because almost all information is entered manually, it changes only when a system administrator edits the fields specifically.

Most modern PS/ALI systems that interface with IP networks provide system managers the opportunity to dynamically update and maintain the data in their enterprise communications system and ultimately in the PSAP's regional database.

For the complete article as published in American School & University magazine, Click here

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