This is a VoIP emergency. Pay attention!
02. May, 2008 
4 Comments
I was sad to hear the news about Elijah Luck, a young Calgary toddler, who passed away Tuesday evening after an ambulance was dispatched to the wrong 9-1-1 address by their VoIP provider. The ambulance was sent to the Luck’s previous address in Mississauga, Ontario, several provinces away because Comwave did not have the correct emergency 9-1-1 address on file.
As a VoIP industry expert with a background in technical operations and project management, I’ve invested a lot of time thinking about the ‘business process’ of the services we deploy and how they are used by our customers.
Some important things to consider when using VoIP:
- Many emergency services call centres offering ‘nomadic’ 9-1-1, will verify the address with the caller on the phone to make sure they match. Even if they don’t ask, always tell the operator your current location.
- Using traditional phone lines, power is supplied to the phone over the phone wires. This is generally not the case with VoIP services. Make sure your Internet router, VoIP terminal adapter and other important devices are connected to a battery backup device to ensure 9-1-1 calls can be placed in the event of a power outage.
- The 9-1-1 address your VoIP service provider has on file is very important. When it changes, don’t forget to tell them. When you update your billing address, make sure the VoIP provider updates the 9-1-1 location record information too.
UPDATE: The Globe and Mail has a better article with more detail and it appears the family did update their billing address, but did not know they needed to update their 911 emergency contact information as well. After Tuesday’s event, I hope that is a verification process Comwave will implement going forward.
UPDATE2: The Toronto Police Services reissued a public service advisory based on recent events. Might be worth reading if you’re new to VoIP and 9-1-1.
Ben, being in the same technical field as you and most of our peers, understand the complexities behind the VOIP E911 systems and process’s. The public is going to have a field day with this one, and unfortunetly, I believe that this is going to leave a big stain on the VOIP industry as viewed by the public eye.
This is very tragic news. I hope the public doesn’t frown upon VoIP much for this. In the end, once all the bugs are worked out, this technology will allow for better emergency response and save more lives. It is a shame they went into production before the kinks were worked out.
Comwave has been offering its residential VoIP service for a number of years Brent. I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘going into production before the kinks were worked out’, but that more care and effort should be placed when considering business processes that could quite literally mean life and death for a person.
Based on what I know about the situation (which still at this point is limited, I admit), the Luck family had provided Comwave with their correct address after they had moved from Mississauga to Calgary, AB.
As with most things, hindsight is 20/20. It appears that Comwave did not have a process in place that would trigger a 9-1-1 location record update when a subscriber calls to change their address.
A bigger question on my mind now is: How many Comwave customers have incorrect, or out of date 9-1-1 records and what steps are Canadian VoIP service providers doing to make sure their data is accurate?
I’ll tell you this: You can shout to the world that it’s the responsibility of VoIP subscribers to ensure their 9-1-1 information is current, but when a death results from a process that might have prevented it, there’s going to be a lot of questions– from the public, the media and the government.
As a Ambulance 911 dispatcher – it’s interesting to know that these VOIP companies that do not charge their customers the separate 911 charge (E-911) for access to the phone company’s 911 system, do NOT have access to the 911 phone system at the dispatch centre. These calls from VOIP come in on non-emergency or transfer booking lines which are NOT answered FIRST like 911 lines. While VOIP may be cheaper – it’s not worth anyone’s life if they need to call 911 and reach someone who may not be trained in emergency situations and be able to offer assistance to the caller such as first aid or Life saving AR and CPR while the ambulance is on the way.