About E9-1-1 Services

E9-1-1 is a national emergency service for many countries, enabling E9-1-1 operators to automatically identify the geographical location and phone number of a 911 caller. In E9-1-1, the 911 caller is routed to the nearest E9-1-1 operator, termed public safety answering point (PSAP) based on the location of the caller. Automatic identification of the caller's location and phone number reduces the time spent on requesting this information from the 911 caller. Therefore, the E9-1-1 service enables the PSAP to quickly dispatch the relevant emergency services (for example, fire department or police) to the caller's location. Even if the call prematurely disconnects, the operator has sufficient information to call back the 911 caller.

The figure below illustrates the routing of an E9-1-1 call to the PSAP:

1.

The VoIP user dials 9-1-1.

2.

The AudioCodes' ELIN device sends the call to the emergency service provider over the PSTN or SIP Trunk (PSAP server).

3.

The emergency service provider identifies the call is an emergency call and sends it to an E9-1-1 Selective Router in the Emergency Services provider's network.

4.

The E9-1-1 Selective Router determines the geographical location of the caller by requesting this information from an Automatic Location Identification (ALI) database based on the phone number or Automatic Number Identifier (ANI) of the 911 caller. Exact location information is also supplied by the Master Street Address Guide (MSAG) database, which is a companion database to the ALI database. Phone companies and public safety agencies collaborate beforehand to create master maps that match phone numbers, addresses and cross streets to their corresponding PSAP. This MSAG is the official record of valid streets (with exact spelling), street number ranges, and other address elements with which the service providers are required to update their ALI databases.

5.

The E9-1-1 Selective Router sends the call to the appropriate PSAP based on the retrieved location information from the ALI.

6.

The PSAP operator dispatches the relevant emergency services to the E9-1-1 caller.