Intrado proves VoIP auto-location in NYC

Intrado picked the urban canyon environment of New York City to conduct a trial on automatically locating mobile VoIP 911 callers and delivering their VoIP location information to the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP). It also picked the right location technology companies as the company reported this week the trial was a success.

Intrado has been working with and testing various location technologies, such as those from Rosum, which uses unmodified broadcast TV signals; S5 Wireless, which has developed a chip that can be attached or embedded in devices; and Skyhook Wireless.

However, Intrado did not say which, if any, of these technologies was used in the trial.

Intrado conducted test VoIP E911 calls in a variety of areas throughout New York City. It then normalized the output from the various location determination technologies about the VoIP caller, then passed that information through the native E911 network to the appropriate PSAP in a usable format.

The trial confirmed that Intrado could support the integration of real-time location information into the existing Intrado V911 Services platform. Intrado’s integration of the technologies used in the trial allows for a solution that minimizes the need for self-provisioning and enables the end user device to determine E911 status and delivery.

"This trial clearly indicates Intrado’s intention and ability to deliver this capability and provides a framework to leverage our V911 Services with emerging technologies,” said Stephen Meer, chief technology officer and co-founder of Intrado.

He also said it indicated that there simply won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution for VoIP E-911. But he did say that, “Each of the technologies worked better than expected, given the tall building and urban canyon environment of New York.”

Meer said the world of VoIP and its intersection with 911 continue to evolve on a number of fronts: the technical front, regulatory front, political front and the economic and financial fronts. The trial was designed to identify “what it will take to have high-efficacy location information available for 911 going forward,” Meer said.

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