scope:

This Technical Report describes the architectures to support emergency call handling in legacy Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1), as well as in transitional and end-state Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) environments, and compares the ability to detect failures/outages associated with emergency call and data delivery in the context of the legacy E9-1-1 and NG9-1-1 architectures.

Purpose

As telecommunications networks continue to evolve to all-IP, the FCC has begun investigating the possible expansion of its Part 4 Outage Reporting rules to include broadband and performance metrics (e.g., throughput, latency, and packet loss) in the FNPRM PS Docket No. 11-82 (FCC 16-63) [Ref 4].

As a result, there is a need for service providers across all industry segments (cable, wireline, and wireless), in all stages of the PSTN transition, to be able to identify when their networks may be experiencing service-impacting events that impair or cause the total loss of 9-1-1 services. As service architectures to support 9-1-1 calling and data delivery evolve to NG9-1-1, there is a need to better understand the complexities of how NG9-1-1 service architectures are designed and where there are divergences from the pre-existing legacy E9-1-1 network infrastructures. This information will be critical for service providers to know so as to a) collect network information that may be reportable under the Part 4 Rules and b) to evaluate if standardization efforts are needed to develop metrics for data collection.

The purpose of this Technical Report is to compare the services architectures used today to provide E9-1-1 with NG9-1-1 service architectures and to identify where in the architectures service-impacting events can be detected. However, it should be noted that the technical limitations outlined in this document limit any given stakeholder's monitoring and reporting capabilities.