Based on population in both the US and Europe, many areas have exceeded, or are about to exceed, 100% penetration of mobile devices. There are nearly 300,000,000 mobile phones deployed today, and many have "cut the cord".
With E9-1-1 revenue originating from monthly landline charges, as more individuals rely on wireless only for their telecommunications needs, public safety loses a significant source of income. In addition to this alarming trend, on the surface, it seems that carrier outages are becoming more prevalent. Although some of the outages are associated with a natural disaster, when the final root cause analysis is done it appears that in many cases critical alarms were missed, or never received.
One has to wonder if these two trends are associated with each other or not, and does the term "carrier grade" mean today what it used to in years past.
When you look at anybody's call statistics around the country, you'll find that anywhere from 40% to 60%, or more, emergency calls originate from a cellular device. So at the end of the day, we have increased demand on our 911 infrastructure, yet a diminishing revenue stream to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of this critical network.
In the enterprise space, there has also been a migration towards mobility of its user base. We've become so accustomed to making a phone call on the go, that we feel constrained when we're tied to our desk with this corded piece of plastic with a dial pad on it. Either we are improving our WLAN technology with devices that allow us to walk around freely in a corporate environment, or we're adapting new dual-mode technology that allows a personal communications device to communicate on either the cellular network, or in an enterprise Wi-Fi environment.
Solving location problem for wireless devices within the enterprise is not a difficult task. In fact, the Avaya WLAN 8100 controller has technology built into it that allows it to communicate directly with and Avaya PBX and update a users location as they roam throughout the corporate campus.
The advent of mobile 4G technology will start to provide larger and larger wireless pipes to the corporate environment. And with sip trunking becoming extremely popular from a price and deployment perspective, it won't be long until we see the enterprise "cutting the cord" as well.
If this new paradigm of connectivity takes hold, in the states where cellular devices already get a free ride for E9-1-1 tariffs, public safety may see their revenue stream dry up even further. Now I want to be perfectly clear on something. This is NOT a technology problem. This is, by all means, a political problem. The lack of the E9-1-1 fee requirements for services such as prepaid wireless devices, are ones that can be solved, and, legislators at the state and federal level need to take into consideration the speed at which technology evolves today, so they don't find themselves too far behind the curve.
Remember that the Avaya E9-1-1 Talk Podcast is on the road this week, attending the Apco International 78th Annual Conference and Expo. Be sure to stop by the Avaya booth number 1626 as we record our 100th episode of the E9-1-1 Talk Podcast and collect your views on NG 911 and what it means to you.
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Until next week. . . dial carefully.
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