In order to ensure that E911 service is available for reliable, seamless service to emergency services callers, a set of fundamental elements must be provided by local telephone companies. The local exchange carrier must be able to demonstrate it maintains surveillance and control of its E911 network have the ability to seamlessly restore service due to an outage, and be able to communicate within its own infrastructure as well as communicate with other carriers in the event of an outage or disaster. This paper outlines some fundamental capabilities that should be in place to ensure that the E911 infrastructure remains viable regardless of the influences on the network, whether due to man-made or natural disasters.

In order to ensure a reliable emergency calling network, local carriers need to be able to demonstrate control and management over their networks. The elements described below outline the various disciplines that must come into play in order to pro-act and/or react to anomalies in E911 networks. The elements can be broken into 3 distinct areas of focus: Surveillance, Restoration and Communication.

The element of surveillance can be broken into 2 parts: monitoring and call testing. The element of monitoring includes a carrier’s ability to actively observe the health of the network and address problems as they arise. The recognition and accumulation of E911 call failures are not only serious issues to the emergency caller, but can place the public in general in peril if left unaddressed.

In addition to monitoring E911 call failures, it is important to monitor the other elements of the network that could have either an immediate or latent affect on subsequent E911 calls. The comprehensive monitoring of E911 trunks, PSAP premise equipment, and real-time alarms on network equipment that may have an influence on E911 call routing, need to be provided as a comprehensive surveillance approach. The ability to proactively assess

the health of the network and take appropriate action to minimize the effect on the overall network is necessary.

Finally, the ability to initiate pro-active testing in the network is necessary to ensure that an inadvertent action by a technician in the field for example, has not caused serious impacts on the E911 network.

In the event of a network problem, a Disaster Recovery approach needs to be formalized and automated to bring the level of service back to within the stringent tolerances enforced by the FCC. In addition to procedures to restore services within the network, a means of disaster recovery for individual PSAPs is also necessary. A fail-over process should be in place that seamlessly transfers incoming calls from one PSAP to its back-up.

During a network outage, communications is essential across the various constituents within the carrier, emergency management entities, governing bodies such as the FCC, as well as between carriers. Elements of communicating anomalies in the E911 network should minimally include the following.

• The carrier should have the ability to gauge an outage duration and its effect on subscribers. An impact evaluation process should be in place to outline how many subscribers are affected by an outage, the geographic area that is impacted, and a timeframe on when service will be restored.
• The carrier should have the ability to track troubles in the network and correlate those troubles with like or disparate troubles. Correlation of a trouble will allow the carrier to access the various trouble characteristics, even if at the outset, symptoms of the outage do not seem to be related. A means to Open/Edit/Close Trouble Reports could provide vital historical data in proactively managing potential outages in the future.
• Periodic/Ad Hoc automated report generation for internal and FCC Reporting would provide a means by which standard outage reports could be generated. This would allow a complete description of the problem and resolution, and can be made available for both internal and FCC reporting.
• During an outage, communications is critical. The carrier needs to have the ability to communicate on an intra-company basis as well as to other carriers and emergency management organizations. Capabilities such as links to company paging, Email distribution of alarms/reports, messaging to other OSSs, and posting of status to intranet web site(s) are all effective means of communication and can be vital to the discovery and notification of an outage.
• Finally, the secure exchange of confidential/proprietary information within the carrier and emergency management authorities can be crucial during an outage and the restoration period that follows.

The ability to manage E911 networks in a reliable, seamless service to emergency services callers is critical to any carrier who supports E911 circuits. Further, a carrier needs to approach Surveillance, Restoration and Communication in a comprehensive way. The local exchange carrier must be able to demonstrate it maintains surveillance and control of its E911 network have the ability to seamlessly restore service due to an outage, and be able to communicate within its own infrastructure as well as communicate with other carriers and emergency management agencies in the event of an outage or disaster. A carrier’s ability to effectively manage their E911 network could also be considered a competitive edge since during a time of crisis, the carrier who is able to detect a problem, reroute emergency calls and restore service quickly reduces the vulnerability of the public and allows it to maintain a high-level of readiness for potential disasters.

A software suite developed by Network Expert Software Systems called Assure911 is a comprehensive network assurance platform, which enhances telephone companies’ abilities to troubleshoot E911 network problems, fosters rapid disaster recovery, facilitates intra-company communications, and speeds up external regulatory reporting. Current users of the network monitoring module of Assure911 are able to provide their local telephone customers with the most reliable 911 service. Results of the product deployment in one Midwest telco showed where 911 outages were resolved 50% faster in its first year of use, and showed similar improvement in subsequent years since its deployment in 1997. Furthermore, reports to the Federal Communication Commission and the Public Utility Commission dropped to the lowest rate in that telco’s national footprint.

Established in 1994, Network Expert Software Systems, Incorporated, (NESS, Inc.) based in Kensington, CT, designs, develops, installs and supports customized software solutions for the operating systems of major telecommunications companies. NESS, Inc.'s browser-based operating support systems (OSS) improve a telco's response time to network anomalies affecting customer service, therefore improving service for the end customer and reducing the number of incidents reported to the FCC. To learn more about our 911 Network Assurance product suite - Assure911^™ and our other products refer to our website at www.nessinc.com or call us at 800-765-3634 to speak with a NESS representative.