Subject: Re: [Ieprep] Public Safety?

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:30:50 -0800

At 02:31 PM 3/28/2002, Gunn, Janet NE wrote:
>This (emergency service call center) sounds to me more like "public 
>safety" rather than "emergency preparedness".  I know this is considered 
>out-of-scope for GETS, but it is not clear to me whether it is in scope 
>for IEPREP.

ieprep relates to anything concerning emergencies; GETs is an obvious 
example, but just an example. If the end result of the conversation is that 
we develop requirements related to interoperability with the telephone 
network in the 911 area, we're probably pretty safe from a charter 
perspective. If it starts getting silly, I will put out the word, or Scott 
will slap my hands for not doing so.

>If it is in scope, the one feature that I am sure a 911 call center would 
>want is a location function for IP phones that is similar to the one that 
>currently exists in the US for land-line phones, and is mandated (again, 
>in the US) for mobile phones in 2002.  I don't know if this is even 
>plausible in the Internet. (Does Mobile IP address physical location, or 
>only topological/network location?  Would topological/network location be 
>useful to a 911 call center?)

Topological location is trivial ("what's your care-of address"), but I 
should think would be next to useless. The fact that I am somewhere in the 
region served by a particular prefix is very possibly less precise than the 
fact that I am in a given mobile phone cell (a set of cells might use the 
same prefix). If I'm reporting an accident, "somewhere in a certain 20 
square miles" isn't what the 911 operator wants to hear.

I believe that there is a working group addressing physical location; if it 
is a requirement, the obvious thing for us to do is state and support the 
requirement, and let said working group work out the details.

There are a number of issues in physical location. One, it tends to imply 
the use of a GPS or something like it. Land lines don't really know the 
physical location of the instrument, or at least none that I have ever 
taken apart did; the PABX etc might very well know where it is, though, and 
believe that the instrument is physically collocated. GSM and US PCS phones 
have a GPS requirement, but it is subject to similar caveats - the phone 
knows where it was last time it could see three satellites, but apart from 
that one is limited to triangulation, which has been known to be 
inaccurate. Non-mobile IP hosts tend to be IP hosts located in a building, 
meaning they will rarely if ever be able to "see" a satellite, but they may 
be near to a GPS-based time source and can report that they are within a 
certain time variance of it as determined by NTP. 802.11 cards contain no 
GPS that I know of. Mobile IP telephones should be very similar to any 
other mobile phone in this respect, however - a GPS might be mandated.

Another issue is related to privacy. If I am calling 911 to report an 
accident, I most certainly want the 911 operator to know where I am. If I 
am shopping for Christmas presents, I might not be very interested in my 
wife being able to locate me precisely. If the Christmas present is for my 
mistress (no, but imagine), all sorts of interesting legal games could come 
into play. In general, the person operating the device probably wants to be 
in control of who knows what about the location of the instrument, the 
precision of that location, and the history of its location.

>If public safety is in scope, land mobile radio interoperability (again, 
>specifically out of scope for GETS) is an important requirement.  During 
>the recovery efforts after 9/11, the the lack of interoperability between 
>the land mobile radio networks used by the various groups (Police, Fire, 
>Rescue, etc) from different jurisdictions was a major problem.  It seems 
>plausible that, if each of these systems had an interface to the Internet, 
>the Internet could provide the interoperability between the systems.

I'm in the market for some words...

_______________________________________________
Ieprep mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ieprep

---

From: "Marshall Eubanks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 10:46:53 -0500

On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 21:30:50 -0800
> At 02:31 PM 3/28/2002, Gunn, Janet NE wrote:
<snip>

> I'm in the market for some words...

Is the focus of this group excusively on voice ?
Wouldn't a instant messager application for emergency
intercommunication be much easier to set up than
interoperating between literally thousands of legacy radio
systems ?

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 10:31:52 -0800

>Is the focus of this group excusively on voice ?

emphatically no.