Patent ID: 8149996

Claim:
A method of operating an emergency services network, the method comprising: receiving an emergency call in the emergency services network; performing one of a selective routing process and a trunk-only routing process to identify a primary answering point to handle the emergency call; determining whether the primary answering point is available to handle the emergency call; if the primary answering point is available to handle the emergency call, identifying first routing information indicating a reason for routing the emergency call to the primary answering point and routing the emergency call to the primary answering point with the first routing information; and if the primary answering point is not available to handle the emergency call, performing one of the selective routing process and the trunk-only routing process to identify an alternate answering point available to handle the emergency call, identifying second routing information indicating a reason for routing the emergency call to the alternate answering point and routing the emergency call to the alternate answering point with the second routing information.