Lessons Learned on the Operation of the LoST Protocol for Mobile IP-Based Emergency Calls

The technology used in citizen-to-authority emergency calls is based on traditional telephony, that is, circuitswitched systems. However, new standards and protocols are being developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to allow emergency communications over packet switched networks, such as the Internet. This architecture is known as Next Generation-9-1-1 (NG-911). In this paper, the authors present lessons learned from experiments on the IETF standard called Location to Service Translation protocol (LoST). LoST maps the user’s location to the address of the emergency call center that serves that location. After implementing the standards in a test-bed with real-world systems, spatial databases, and communication networks, the authors observed performance issues that users may experience. Based on their observations, the authors propose practical ideas to improve the performance of the NG-911 system and LoST protocol operation for mobile users. (e.g., 9-1-1, 1-1-2, etc). In order to better explain the context of this paper, next we provide a brief history of emergency calls, followed by a description of this paper’s motivation. A. A Brief History of Emergency call Systems It was in 1937, in Great Britain, that the idea of a single emergency number was developed. DOI: 10.4018/jiscrm.2010070101 2 International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 2(3), 1-24, July-September 2010 Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. By dialing 9-9-9, British citizens could contact the police, fire department, or medical services. Only later, in 1958 US legislators began to consider the use of a single emergency number. The number chosen in the US was 9-1-1. It is known that one of the reasons for this choice is that the numbers were located on opposite sides of the key-pad, which reduced the chances of accidental calls. In 1968, the first 9-1-1 call was made in Alabama. Later that year, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (ATT Phase II required the wireless carrier to send an estimate of the geographic coordinates of the mobile user, typically using some type of network triangulation scheme (Feng & Law, 2002; Sayed, Tarighat, & Khajehnour, 2005). Not all wireless providers have implemented Phase II service as of 2009, based on the National Emergency Number Association (NENA)’s recent 9-1-1 Deployment Reports (NENA, 2010). In the late 1990s, with the onset of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) (Goode, 2002) and other Internet services, researchers and developers have realized that a complete overhaul of the current E-911 system is necessary – proposing a Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG-911) (Hixson, Cobb, & Halley, 2007; NENA, 2007a, 2007b; Schulzrinne & Arabshian, 2002) system that Figure 1. Evolution of North American 9-1-1 emergency calling system 22 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the publisher's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/lessons-learned-operation-lostprotocol/47324