[VOIPSEC] e911 peculiarities

[Dustin D. Trammell]

On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 11:07 -0600, J. Oquendo wrote:
> I believe you fail to understand the core issue here, so take two.
> 
> Client (always connected) --> VOIP (my company) --> 911
> 
> If they're services with US (I don't care about their provider) - if their
> service with us is interrupted due to say non payment, am I required legally
> to pass emergency services to them.

After giving this some more thought, and to expand on my original point
about not being technically able to if the user can't route calls into
your switch (no account/credentials), I would draw an analogy to
landline PSTN service in this manner:

If the customer has a "line" (account/credentials), whether or not it
will route calls ("disconnected" for non-payment), then yes you should
be providing 911 service (i.e., if the copper is "hot")

If the customer no longer has a line (account/credentials are no longer
valid) then obviously you can't (i.e., the copper is "dead").

If the "line" is connected to the service (valid account/credentials),
then you route 911 calls.

What you likely need to determine is your liability to the customer
regarding how long you wait after "disconnecting" their "line" for
non-payment before you completely disable their account/credentials.

-- 
Dustin D. Trammell
Security Researcher
BreakingPoint Systems, Inc.