Testing E911

[cholzhauer]

Our SIP trunk vendor has told us to use 311 or 933 to check the setup of our E911 setup.  When I dial those extensions, I get "invalid extension"

I've tried adding them to the emergency numbers part of the numbering plan, but that didn't do anything.

One thing that just hit me...we use a PRI for outgoing calls while SIP is only used for incoming toll-free and 911.  I've set the outgoing emergency extension to the SIP trunk group, so I assume I just need to tell the 5000 that 311/933 is associated with emergency services?  How can I get these to work?

Any help would be appreciated

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

Are you ever going to use the SIP Trunks for E911? If it were me I would just leave your 911 alone if it is working the way you want it to. I have posted in previous threads how 911 works in the system if you want to look that up, but it all depends on how your system is setup and what is available to it when trying to call out.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

Hi TE,

Yes...we have a few locations on one system; those locations don't have a POTS line, so we'd like to send 911 over SIP.  Our SIP provider has given us a number that's tied to the physical address of the remote location

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

So, I am just guessing here that you are currently having those phones outpulse that number through Emergency Calling Party Number within their phones settings; if not you would need this set up.

Next you would need to either set the Emergency Extension under Associated Extensions of each phone to use the SIP Trunk Group or set them to 92000 [Default FAC for ARS] and then make sure that the SIP Trunk Group is in Route Group 1's Facility Group. Just to let you know when 911 is dialed from an extension using ARS it will only use what is in Route Group 1's Facilty Group to get out. If the phone doesn't have outgoing access it will still get out, but only after trying a couple of times.

Once you have that set up you can test it by dialing 911 and then telling them that it is not an emergency and that you are testing to ensure that you are getting to the correct PSAP [Public Service Answer Point]. Have them verify the name, phone number, and address of the 911 call and that they are the correct PSAP for that location.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

Hi TE.

Everything should be set on the phone system side (Route group 1 is PRI, group 3 is SIP)

I know I can use 911 to test, but the SIP provider says if I use 311 or 933 that it'll just play a recording telling me which number and address I'm calling from.  If that worked, I could have people at the remote location test for me (I'm not at that location normally)

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

Alright if you think your setup then dial 8311# to test their routing. I suspect it will go out route group 1 on your PRI.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

I'm thinking it's not...or I've thoroughly confused myself. 

Normal outgoing calls go out 92000 like you said...92000 is "automatic route selection" and is a feature code.  You probably know this.  The "emergency extension" is set to 92005 which is a 'CO trunk group'.  You probably knew this too.

We had been setting the emergency extension to 92008 which is a SIP trunk group under "SIP Peers", but I see there is also a 92004 (labeled Nexvortex SIP) under CO Trunk groups.  If I dial 92005 I get a dial tone...92004 gives me "no trunks in trunk group"  I tried to add trunks to the group, but there are none to be found.

Either way, if I dial 8311# I get a fast busy signal (with the emergency outgoing extension set to 92005 or 92008)

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

Alright, I figured you had the Emergency Extension set to the SIP Trunk Group you wanted to use and you stated previously that you put 311 and 933 in your Emergency Number section. So I made an assumption that your default outgoing FAC was 8 since you are in the US. If that it the case when you dialed 8311# it should have told the system that you were dialing an outside line ( and the number to dial is (311) and no other numbers follow (#). At this point if your phone is set for 92000 as it's outgoing extension it would then go to the Numbering Plan section and check the number against the various digit patterns of which one would be the Emergency Numbers List. At this point one of the Administrator phones should have been notified that you dialed an Emergency Number from your extension. At the same time the system would now go to Route Group 1 and use the first CO Trunk Group that is listed in its Facility Group that you have outgoing access on and use your Emergency Calling Part Number as the number you are dialing from. If it is the PRI then dialing 311 and ending the dialing string would mean nothing to it and if the PRI doesn't allow for Non-Native Caller ID (a number not belonging to it) you may get a fast busy or just dead air and disconnect.

If you want the system to use the Emergency Outgoing Extension directly you would need to change the FAC of Emergency Call from 911 to 311 temporarily so you could just dial 311 from and idle phone. It would then see it as an emergency call, use your emergency extension to dial 311, and outpulse your Emergency Calling Party Number as the number you are calling from.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

Just to close this up...the issue was in misinformation from the carrier.

The steps are:  set the outgoing emergency number to the virtual number provided by the carrier, set the outgoing emergency extension to the SIP trunk group, set 311/933 as emergency numbers in the emergency list.

The issue was the carrier had forgotten to tell us to unblock another IP address in the firewall.  The call was being completed over the "normal" IP address, but the audio was being carried over a completely different IP address and since it was blocked, no audio was coming through.

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

Don't forget about the most important part of this. The Emergency a Calling Party Number is how the provider will know which PSAP to send the call to and what address to give it.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

Thanks.  I tried to make that the first thing in my previous post

[Tech Electronics]

Cholzhauer,

So, is this working for you now? I must of misread your previous post sorry.

Thanks,

TE

[cholzhauer]

Yep, the error was with the firewall and the carrier not telling me about the other IP address