Slide 2 Richard Barnes & Brian Rosen IEEE Spectrum April
2014 IS 376 November 13, 2014 Slide 3 911 for the 21st Century IS
376 November 13, 2014 Page 2 Basic 911 Started in the 1960s on a
community-by-community basis, 911 emergency calls originally were
routed through the telephone exchange system to an emergency
communications center (a Public Safety Answering Point), where a
call taker would look up the appropriate emergency number in a book
and route the call. Slide 4 911 for the 21st Century IS 376
November 13, 2014 Page 3 Enhanced 911 The process became more
automated in the 1980s, when 911 calls were routed to a specialized
router that would immediately direct them to the correct Public
Safety Answering Point, based on the location of the caller. The
E911 system was reliant on landlines, however, and wouldnt work
with the newly developing mobile phone system. This was remedied in
the 1990s by having each mobile phone company set up a Mobile
Positioning Center which assigns each 911 call a fake landline
number that allows the correct PSAP to be contacted. The PSAP
coordinates with the MPC, which uses GPS data, triangulation
between cell towers, or (as a last resort) the cell tower address
to localize the caller. Slide 5 911 for the 21st Century IS 376
November 13, 2014 Page 4 E911 Status April 2013 Slide 6 911 for the
21st Century IS 376 November 13, 2014 Page 5 East Coast Derecho
June 2012 When a fast-moving storm (called a derecho) hit several
states in June 2012, it resulted in 22 deaths, widespread damage,
and large-scale E911 communications failures. The sharp increase in
reports to the Network Outage Reporting System were ultimately
attributed to the failure of backup power systems designed to
maintain service during commercial power outages. The E911
dependency on the circuit-switched wireline network increased its
vulnerability, which wasnt helped by poor maintenance of backup
cell batteries. Slide 7 911 for the 21st Century IS 376 November
13, 2014 Page 6 Multistate Outage April 2014 On April 9, 2014, a
call-routing facility in Englewood, Colorado, stopped directing
emergency calls to eighty-one 911 call centers (Public Safety
Answering Points) in seven states. The outage was caused by a
software failure in the Colorado facility, and resulted in a loss
of 911 service for more than 11 million people for up to six hours.
Over 6,600 calls to 911 never reached a PSAP. Slide 8 911 for the
21st Century IS 376 November 13, 2014 Page 7 Wireless E911
Mislocation FCC data from July-September 2013 indicate that the
vast majority of wireless 911 calls in Washington D.C. were unable
to locate the callers longitude and latitude (although they could
locate the cell tower being used). Cell tower position is
unreliable for determining caller position because calls are
frequently not picked up by the nearest cell tower. Slide 9 911 for
the 21st Century IS 376 November 13, 2014 Page 8 Next Generation
911 Rather than attempting to retrofit newer Internet and 4G mobile
calls to the old PSAP-based E911 system, NG911 adapts the old
circuit-switched and 3G mobile calls to fit the new Emergency
Services IP Network platform. Slide 10 911 for the 21st Century IS
376 November 13, 2014 Page 9 NG911 Progress August 2014
