VoIP emergency calling: foundations and practice

This book provides a comprehensive view of the emerging standards for VoIP emergency calling from an International perspective In this book, the authors provide a treatment of the VoIP emergency calling process that is both comprehensive, looking at all aspects of emergency calling, and practical, providing technical details on how such functions can be implemented. In addition, the authors describe the standardization efforts of the Internet Engineering Task Force who are currently working to improve the situation for VoIP emergency calls. The book provides an overview of emergency calling with a particular focus on the ECRIT emergency calling architecture, and discusses considerations related to implementation, deployment, and regulation of next-generation emergency calling. It also takes a look at practical aspects of emergency calling, with a set of exercises to help the reader get familiar with the technologies involved. Key Features: . Discusses emerging standards for VoIP emergency calling from an international perspective. Provides practical guides for implementing the core of the emergency calling architecture. Contains architectural, practical, and regulatory perspectives. Written by experts working on the development of emergency calling architectures and its implementation. Includes an accompanying website with open-source software packages (http://www.voip-sos.net/) This book will be an invaluable resource for product managers and developers, equipment vendors, network operators, emergency service providers, and telecommunications regulators. Industry professionals interested in standards compliance will also find this book of interest.

-- Foreword ix -- Useful Links xi -- List of Abbreviations xiii -- 1 Introduction 1 -- 1.1 Calling over the Internet 2 -- 1.2 VoIP Emergency Calling Problem Statement 2 -- 1.3 Emergency Communication 5 -- 1.4 Overview of this Book 6 -- References 7 -- 2 Emergency Calling 9 -- 2.1 Overview 9 -- 2.2 Infrastructure Requirements 10 -- 2.3 The Role of Location Information 12 -- References 16 -- 3 The ECRIT Emergency Calling Architecture 19 -- 3.1 Overview 20 -- 3.2 Location Information 22 -- 3.2.1 PIDF-LO 23 -- 3.2.2 Location by Value and Location by Reference 30 -- 3.2.3 Location Conveyance 33 -- 3.3 Service URNs 39 -- 3.4 Determining the Appropriate PSAP / the LoST Protocol 40 -- 3.4.1 The Mapping Process / findService 41 -- 3.4.2 Retrieving the Service List / listServicesByLocation 44 -- 3.4.3 Address Validation 46 -- 3.4.4 Areas of Responsibility / serviceBoundary 47 -- 3.4.5 LoST Server Discovery 49 -- 3.4.6 LoST Architecture 50 -- 3.4.7 Private and Public LoST Trees 53 -- 3.4.8 LoST Synchronization 54 -- 3.5 The Emergency Call Itself 57 -- 3.5.1 Initiating Emergency Calls 58 -- 3.5.2 Routing Emergency Calls 60 -- 3.5.3 Assembling the SIP INVITE Message 61 -- 3.6 Home Dial String …