[80485] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: FCC To Require 911 for VoIP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Lesher)
Sun May 1 23:55:31 2005
X-Original-To: wb8foz@panix.com
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@nrk.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu (nanog list)
Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 23:56:50 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0505012156310.5711-100000@localhost.localdomain> from "Dean Anderson" at May 01, 2005 10:07:45 PM
Reply-To: wb8foz@nrk.com
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
>
> > Here's one vendor: http://www.tonecommander.com/e911/How%20PBX%20ANI-LINK%20Works.htm
>
> I think this scheme isn't going to work for VOIP.
Well, yea.. It's not.
> I think that VOIP phones will either ultimately be exempted, or required
> to have GPS (or triangulation or some other scheme)
...that might work....sometimes...
> Or maybe we'll just start to see red phones next to the fire-alarm boxes.
Alas, Gamewell fire boxes are all but dead. I don't know of any
city still running them. Too bad, because it was a dirt-simple
technology that Just Plain Worked. Looks like they were first
deployed in the 1850's.
Oops; NYC may still have some:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/Fire%20Alarms%20page/Alarms.html.
And if http://plaws.net/fire/list.shtml is accurate, much of
Mass. Hmm.
OT explantion: There was a loop from the fire alarm office around
the city {or fraction thereof}, through each box, and back to
the office. One end had +130v {or so}; the other had -130.
When you pulled a box, it split the loop in half, and grounded
both halves in a sequence set on a spring-driven wheel ("3 2 5
PAUSE 3 2 5"). Think of that as the static IP address...
At the office, 2 pen registers recorded the loop current.
If two boxes (say 325 and 326) got pulled; 325 showed on the
one chart, 326 on the other.
We might have them still in wide use today if not for social
changes; the false-alarm rate is many times higher than voice
calls, and most departments gave up.
I think there are NANOG lessons in there. Sometimes, a less than
100% optimal technology is good enough to outlast many a "newer
better faster sexier" one...
--
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Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
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