ROUTING AROUND THE RULES
Superficially, VoIP's failure to provide emergency services echoes that of cell phones a decade earlier. The 911 system is largely separate from the PSTN, but both are based on the same circuit-switched architecture and were designed to work together. Dedicated 911 trunk lines link telephone exchanges to the country's thousands of local Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), call centers staffed by emergency dispatchers.
Each PSAP serves a relatively small area, so it's relatively simple for them to implement E-911 for PSTN lines. Nearly every PSAP now contains a database of Automatic Location Information (ALI), which maps all the phone numbers within its coverage area to a specific place--at the least a street address, and sometimes a precise location within a building. The ALI data usually pops up in front of the dispatcher's screen as soon as a 911 call is connected so that people in emergencies don't need to give directions.
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