How common is it for an upstream provider (in this case someone that manages 911 networks) to not have a sandbox, testing number, or anything of any kind to allow you to test that you've done everything right, short of just sending 911 calls in production? Most of my third-party DID providers have various (well, usually 933) numbers to test that you're routing correctly, are getting the right information returned, etc. One (the one on the LEC side of the house) has no mechanism for such. To quote Bill O'Reilly, "We'll do it live!". To me that seems like a gaping, obvious problem that any idiot long before me should have pointed out and resolved by now. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com
On Oct 11, 2022, at 4:13 PM, Mike Hammett via VoiceOps <voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:
How common is it for an upstream provider (in this case someone that manages 911 networks) to not have a sandbox, testing number, or anything of any kind to allow you to test that you've done everything right, short of just sending 911 calls in production? Most of my third-party DID providers have various (well, usually 933) numbers to test that you're routing correctly, are getting the right information returned, etc. One (the one on the LEC side of the house) has no mechanism for such.
To quote Bill O'Reilly, "We'll do it live!". To me that seems like a gaping, obvious problem that any idiot long before me should have pointed out and resolved by now.
Our current provider does not, at least on the flavor of platform we?re on. We coordinate testing with CapCOG, the organization that coordinates among other things, PSAP call routing and other emergency communications in Central Texas. We?re a state agency, thus more of an end user enterprise operation. ?Chris
I wish more 911 systems had a 933 number. I've made actual 911 calls for testing purposes more times than I can remember. I always call the Sheriff's Office admin line first, asking if this is an alright time. But sometimes my 911 call is routed to a different county than I expected, and that doesn't always go so well with the dispatcher. But that sort of proves why we need to do the test calls. On a related note, we sometimes setup a 977 number on PBX systems. This will read back the number that will be outpulsed if you were to call 911. There are scenarios where what you would normally want to use as the outbound calling number is not the same as what you want to use when calling 911 (for E911 location, callback, etc.). Our 977 number helps us verify we have at least that much configured correctly. But we still would need to call 911 so a dispatcher can verify the rest. "Does your console say which room I am in, or which floor I am on?" "Room 207, Floor 2, Entrance 4" "Perfect. I'll call you back in a minute from the next room."
On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 11:24 AM Mike Johnston via VoiceOps < voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:
But we still would need to call 911 so a dispatcher can verify the rest. "Does your console say which room I am in, or which floor I am on?" "Room 207, Floor 2, Entrance 4" "Perfect. I'll call you back in a minute from the next room."
So do you actually make a call from every room? Say, if there are 200 of them? And how does that go with the PSAP ops?
On 2022-10-12 13:34, Carlos Alvarez via VoiceOps wrote:
So do you actually make a call from every room?? Say, if there are 200 of them?
No. We do some sample. Of your hypothetical 200 phones, probably 100 or more are very similar (school classrooms, hotel rooms, office workers). For those, we try to get at least one from each floor, one from each wing, one from each major office, that sort of thing. So a 2-floor hotel might get three 911 calls. One from the front desk, one from a room on the first floor, and one from a room on the second floor. If the owner of the hotel lives in the hotel, then we might make a fourth 911 call from their apartment/room.
And how does that go with the PSAP ops?
After a few calls, they are getting less friendly with us. I try to be clear up front with how many calls I intend to make. Before hanging up each 911 call, I tell them how many more calls there are to go. The last call I tell them, "This is the final call...this concludes my testing," and, "Thank you for your time!" I'm told that some PSAPs have to write up a report for every 911 call they get, and that for some, their software sometimes does not let them group together multiple calls into one report. If it wasn't for the inconvenience to the PSAPs, we would probably test EVERY phone we install. At least I would. To me, a phone isn't fully installed unless 911 is known to work correctly.
Maybe this suggestion should be made to NENA and the National 911 administrators. They may not know it's a problem. MARY LOU CAREY BackUP Telecom Consulting Office: 615-791-9969 Cell: 615-796-1111 On 2022-10-12 01:22 PM, Mike Johnston via VoiceOps wrote:
I wish more 911 systems had a 933 number. I've made actual 911 calls for testing purposes more times than I can remember. I always call the Sheriff's Office admin line first, asking if this is an alright time. But sometimes my 911 call is routed to a different county than I expected, and that doesn't always go so well with the dispatcher. But that sort of proves why we need to do the test calls.
On a related note, we sometimes setup a 977 number on PBX systems. This will read back the number that will be outpulsed if you were to call 911. There are scenarios where what you would normally want to use as the outbound calling number is not the same as what you want to use when calling 911 (for E911 location, callback, etc.). Our 977 number helps us verify we have at least that much configured correctly.
But we still would need to call 911 so a dispatcher can verify the rest. "Does your console say which room I am in, or which floor I am on?" "Room 207, Floor 2, Entrance 4" "Perfect. I'll call you back in a minute from the next room." _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
Great idea. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Lou Carey via VoiceOps" <voiceops at voiceops.org> To: "Mike Johnston" <mjohnston at wiktel.com> Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2022 1:53:39 PM Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Lack of Sandbox Maybe this suggestion should be made to NENA and the National 911 administrators. They may not know it's a problem. MARY LOU CAREY BackUP Telecom Consulting Office: 615-791-9969 Cell: 615-796-1111 On 2022-10-12 01:22 PM, Mike Johnston via VoiceOps wrote:
I wish more 911 systems had a 933 number. I've made actual 911 calls for testing purposes more times than I can remember. I always call the Sheriff's Office admin line first, asking if this is an alright time. But sometimes my 911 call is routed to a different county than I expected, and that doesn't always go so well with the dispatcher. But that sort of proves why we need to do the test calls.
On a related note, we sometimes setup a 977 number on PBX systems. This will read back the number that will be outpulsed if you were to call 911. There are scenarios where what you would normally want to use as the outbound calling number is not the same as what you want to use when calling 911 (for E911 location, callback, etc.). Our 977 number helps us verify we have at least that much configured correctly.
But we still would need to call 911 so a dispatcher can verify the rest. "Does your console say which room I am in, or which floor I am on?" "Room 207, Floor 2, Entrance 4" "Perfect. I'll call you back in a minute from the next room." _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
participants (5)
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caalvarez＠gmail.com -
cboyd＠gizmopartners.com -
marylou＠backuptelecom.com -
mjohnston＠wiktel.com -
voiceops＠ics-il.net