RoomX & 911

[Amphibian]

Hey Team,

I hope this is the proper location to post a question about RoomX...

Here in the States, several states are looking to pass laws making it a requirement that when an individual dials 911 from their room phone that it dials the correct emergency 911 number and that the information passed to the dispatcher displays the proper address and room number.

Does anyone know if it is currently possible to send the "room" number along with the other required 911 info? If so, would you like to educate me or direct me in the right direction as to how it's done?

Thanks

amphibian

 

[danardf]

Hi my frog and happy new year to you.

This kind of informations is not provided through the extensions side EWG or Freepbx around the Emergency number?
When you create an extension, it's for ever, right?
RoomX changes only the CALLERID(name).

What do you need to send?
The CID number of the Hotel, doesn't it?

 

[Amphibian]

Sir danardf,

Happy New Year to you sir.

My understanding (based on training & certification as a 911/Police Dispatcher) of the E911 systems used here in the States are as such:

Person dials 911,

Telco associates the number with information within their database and the routes the the call to the closest Police/Sheriff's Dept (as determined by the database) with the following information to be displayed on the "Dispatchers" console:

Time/Date
Phone Number
Person/Business Name Assigned to this Number
Address Street, City, State, Zip
GPS Info ( for cell phone callers)
And, for pbx systems if the call is on wireline and not sip any special "location" (location of office like what floor, etc..)

The issue is, that most hotels within the State, require you to dial 9 for an outside line. So if you dial 911 without first dialing "9" you don't get emergency assistance. Several laws have gone into effect over the last few years that require the "number assigned owner" of the number to provide office location information in multi-office buildings so that police/fire can respond to the proper location when required. Most motels do not provide this info.

Last week in our state a 40'ish father committed a crime in a hotel room bathroom against his wife while their daughter was watching tv, the father then left and the daughter heard her mother calling out for help. Once she saw how her mother was injured she went to diall 911 and got no help. The young daughter did'nt know that she had to dial "9" first to get an outside line and was not aware of the room number to boot. So now poeple are pushing for motels to provide direct dial of 911 without first dialing the 9 and are requiring that the "room number" be included in the information sent to dispatcher. Problem is, that the telco switch does not know what rooms are what in their database as each room doesn't have a individual line associated with each room.

My request is how to setup Elastix to send the room number when dialing 911. I know how to do the outbout route, not sure where to place the "room number" in outbound 911 calls.

Thank you Sir.

amphibian

 

[danardf]

Ok I begin to understand.
Steve Lane had spoken to me about this function a few month ago.
I had to make a such function, but ..... no times to begin it.

In France, we must dial '0' for the outgoing calls instead '9' for you.
'17' for the police,'18' for the fire department, Instead of '911'.
About the emergency number, we must to send only the CID number the most near of the local extension.
And even if you doesn't send your CID number, the fire department can know your real CID through the database of IT operatior from the origine of call (So they may know the address).
It's not the same like you.

However, how RoomX could provide the 911, without dialing 9 before.?!
The adding a specific route for the rooms. when a room will dial the 911, the call will be sent without the prefix 9.
It's doable.

Second point.
Who gives the informations that they need?
RoomX should give these information through any vocal messages or the guest?
When does the message should be send?
Before that guest talks to the 911?
Just a message loop?

It's doable yet. but i shoud code this function,

Let me know.

 

[Amphibian]

Sir danardf,

911/E911 operates just like caller ID with one exception. On a standard phone call (me - to you) when I call you you see my number displayed on your phone. With 911, when I dial 911 the telco sends the caller ID number, but it also sends the address, name, and other important infomation it feels required along with it. So if I am at say the Hilton in room 201, if I dial 911 then the outbound route needs to dial (usually) 9911. When the police/fire receives the call the dispatcher will only see the name and address of the hotel but it won't see the "room number".

I'm certain that it will require the efforts of both the telco and the pbx provider on two counts, (1) - the telco is going to have to provide additional "dispaly information" within it's software to display the room number that (2) is pulled from the PBX when the call is made.

So my thinking is that when the PBX see a "911", it's going to need to automatically pull the extension number, assign the proper room number and send it down the line with the phone number -- if I am correct in my thinking.

If you have a landline, the telco knows/have the information on the building/house location, so then somehow the room number only needs to be sent. But when dealing with VoIp, it's up to the VoIp/PBX provider to see that all the right information is sent to the 911 receiver. Failure on the VoIp/PBX provider to send the right info in an emergency is cause for fines from police/fire and the liability (law suits, etc....) becomes massive.

amphibian

 

[danardf]

For include any informations about the room (first name, last name, room number, level, floor...etc) it's not really a problem.
Just include the missing informations into the roomx database, and so, no problem for extracting them.

If you like, we could working together on this function.

Just use my personnal mail. :lol:

 

[pmurphy]

So here is something I don't know much about but I will stick my nose in anything. Ha

I thought the CID is passed on the line and everything else is database driven, so that the 911 database has the records of location that are associated with the CID. So for most offices you have a 911 route that shows a registered CID of your office with correct address.

If you wanted to do something where it showed every room as individual you would have to register each room with its own registered CID in the database. NXXNXXXX01 suite 1 Hilton Hotel address .... NXXNXXXX02 suite 2 and so on.

So I think you have to get a DID for each room if they want to go there. That is going to burn some serious DIDs if they do that. Hotels make lots of money so they won't mind. What is another $1 per month per room.

 

[danardf]

It's possible for an Hospital or a Clinic, but having a DID for each room.
Do you think that's obliged?

 

[pmurphy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1

This wiki describes they are working on some additional concepts for network identification and such, but none of those would remedy the concept of a hotel room. Unless they come up with another way to do it you would have to use the registration via DID. While helpful to have an emergency loop of an emergency message broadcast loop you would have to have some type of # out of the message for clear communication between the 911 operator and caller, and I would assume as with any other government controlled service you would have to have such message approved.

Not sure how else this could be accomplished today without the DID. Remember that often people have a concept of what they want as in the case without completely understanding what it takes. I would hate to count all the hotel rooms in Texas much less the entire US, major resource requirement.

I did like the idea of the security notification that is described in the wiki, couldn't hurt to ring the front desk of a hotel with an emergency message stating the 911 service has been dialed from room number making them aware so they knew about it when the police or fire department pulled into the drive way.

 

[danardf]

I had a discution with a guy in Florida. There's lots of hotels with only one DID for the hotel, and not for each one of rooms.

In any cases, the E911 information is not provided through Elastix (Asterisk), it's the IT operator which have to send the informations to the E911 server. And the Hotel should complete all information for the E911 documents.
Nothing side Asterisk (Elastix) excepted the CID of the Hotel, or one CID for each DID used for each one of rooms.
In this case, one E911's information for each room.

However, a trick could be done around of: The room and the receptionist.
When a room calls the 911, an alert could be sent to the receptionist, with all informations about this room.

 

[pmurphy]

Yes that is how I understand it to work. You can have a single registered 911 for each real DID, which is how the database works. I am fairly sure that is how our remote phones on a hosted system we have can have individual 911 addresses associated with them.

I think the idea of notifing the receptionist is a great first step in helping a hotel. I had never thought about how they know when a 911 call goes out without being directly involved from the beginning of the call.

 

[danardf]

Yes that is how I understand it to work. You can have a single registered 911 for each real DID, which is how the database works. I am fairly sure that is how our remote phones on a hosted system we have can have individual 911 addresses associated with them.

Yes sure.

So, for resume, If there's one DID for each rooms, a E911's subscription will be done for each one. The room should send its CID/DID number.
If only one DID for the hotel, the room should send the CID/DID of the hotel, and in the room or on the top of phone should be wrote any informations on the 911, the location, the address.....

Right?

I think the idea of notifing the receptionist is a great first step in helping a hotel. I had never thought about how they know when a 911 call goes out without being directly involved from the beginning of the call.

Into the dial plan, it could be easy to launching an AGI script when the 911 is dialed by any guest.
The AGI script will send to the receptioniste all what's happening for this room.

 

[pmurphy]

sounds right for phone labels and the way a single DID cover would work

notification is a great idea

 

[danardf]

It's not really my idea, but Patrick_Elx. (from Florida). Thanks to you.
But sure, good idea.

 

[trilok]

RoomX CDR Billing

Cannot see the call billing in roomx billing, cam any one help me on this I have downloaded the latest version of RoomX 1.0.0-91 and am running the module in Elastix Centos 5.9 (Final)

First thanks for the wonderful module, I have been testing it since I got the module and have exploring the software. all the module is fine except the CDR billing in the roomx billing report the called details are not shown properly, but when viewed through the reports of elastix everything is correct. but in the roomx billing the cdr is not showing as the elastix billing report, could you please help me,
another thing is that we cannot see the mini bar bills in the reports ??

Please can any one help me on my above query

 

[danardf]

Hi

Just create a new thread.
It's not a 911 issue.

 

[Amphibian]

Sir danardf,

Issue: When a occupant of a hotel/motel room dials (here in the U S) 911 most hotels/motels require the number 9 to be dialed first for any outside line communications. Been this way for ages. Due to the crime that took place in Marshall, Texas there is now a call by citizens and public safety that at any time a 911 call is dialed that the call should go directly to the emergency center and that the call info should include the room number, office number, extension number, etc.. along with any standard info included now. There is a petention currently (with now over 400,000 signitures) to our Federal Communications Commision to make this a "mandatory requirement". I'm sure that the FCC will without a doubt make this happen not only for all hotels/motels but any large building with multiple offices where there is a PBX switch for the building.

Solutions:

danardf, you are correct in that if there is a "landline/hardline" (DID or otherwise) from the telco to the hotel that when 911 is dialed, the line that it is dialed out on, the current infomation of name, location, date, time. etc... (but not room number) of the hotel is stored within the database of the telco. This would mean that if the hotel had a "individual" line installed by the telco for each room ( and the last four digits of the number assigned would represent that individual room) then the telco would (more than likely) have the info available for each room, but not necessarily the room number. Most Hotels do not have 300 individual lines for a 300 room hotel, at most they migh have 20, maybe. Most hotels use a PBX/Switch to connect rooms to the few outside lines, no different then most commercial businesses.

Now for those hotels that use VoIp services, the the information is either provided by the PBX machine it's self or by the VoIp provider. People like Vontage, Majic Jack, Google Voice (from what I know) make it very clear that they do not provide 911 or E911 services with their services, so it would be up to the end user to provide such inforamation to the emergency center if the end user dialed 911.

Now then, most 911 emergency centers display a 10-11 digit phone number, location, ect each on a seperate displayed line. So the solution is going to be two-fold:

1: As you stated, dial plan of PBX should reconize when a "911" is dialed and handle the call properly without having to dial a 9 first. That is doable without problem. But there must be a way that the PBX sends the "room number" along with the caller ID based on the room number that the 911 was dialed from.

2: The telco is going to have to modify their equipment so that when a 911 is dialed from a hotel that it will accept the "room number" parameter along with the CID of the landline. The same would be true for VoIp, the room number would needed to be sent with the CID.

Both solutions would work and work with little effort, if , FCC looks at it that way. But knowing and dealing with FCC over the last twenty years or so as I have delt with them they are not so quick to do things the "easy" way.

All I know at this point is that it ( the petention) will be presented to the FCC soon and some kind of change will be required. Just like the little girl that dialed 911, she didn't know she had to dial the 9 first and in addition she didn't even know the room number, no one should have to dial 9 first before dialing 911.

I agree that when 911 is dialed that there should be some kind of notification to a "front desk/operator" of the hotel or building/office manager so they too know what is happening and not found blindsided by the sudden presence of emergency personel asking where they need to go. That is the way I have set up a few hospitals to do just that and it works.

So in conclusion, we all know that sooner or later landlines and analog phone devices will be a thing of the past and only VoIp will be offered so I would think that PBX software and/or RoomX will need a method of storing such data pertaining to emergency information and to have a method of pulling the room number each time a 911 is dialed and inaddition would need to have a "automatic script" that would exicute notifing an operator/front desk that such a call was placed for multiple room buildings.

Hope this describes it better. I would be willing to work/test with you on this where I can.

amphibian

 

[danardf]

Providing a database including all needed informations is easy.
So, no worry about the information like, room number, first name, last name, floor, level, corridor, directions, left or right door.
We could imagine, into the roomx general configuration, we could set some parameters like for example. Lat & Long GPS, name, address, phone number of the Hotel. (So, general parameters).
And for each 911 called from any room, adding some additionnal infromations like, room number, phone number of the room, first and last name of the guest, the floor, the door, the corridor. ...Etc

So i can generate a such datas inside RoomX database.
The question is. Who and how should use these datas?