scope:

Regulators and industry stakeholders initially focused on supporting caller identity authentication and verification for calls carried over Internet Protocol (IP) networks using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to address concerns related to robocalling and illegitimate caller identity spoofing. Caller authentication techniques, such as those described in ATIS standards related to Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) and IETF RFCs related to Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR), have been developed to allow calls traveling through interconnected IP-based carrier networks to have the legitimacy of the caller's identity evaluated by the originating carrier and validated by the terminating carrier, facilitating the delivery of an indication of the legitimacy of the caller identity information to the called party. The ATIS Non-IP Call Authentication Task Force has defined call authentication mechanisms that will operate in the non-IP portions of voice service provider networks that may be useful in supporting the Second Report and Order [Ref 1] adopted and released by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on October 1, 2020.

This Technical Report discusses call authentication in the context of emergency services offered using legacy Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) and transitional Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) architectures. It considers non-IP call authentication mechanisms that are being defined in a non-emergency context by the industry and discusses the impacts of call authentication on the processing of 9-1-1 calls.

Purpose

This Technical Report provides an analysis of the applicability of non-IP call authentication mechanisms being considered by the industry to legacy E9-1-1 and transitional NG9-1-1 architectures.