9-1-1 Service As Used For Emergency Response

Policy

Scope

This policy is intended to address the 9-1-1 service as used for emergency response. It applies to all University facilities provided by or located at the Urbana Campus.

Governance/Authority

  1. The Division of Public Safety will be the office governing the functionality of all 9-1-1 services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This includes the approval and maintenance of all policies and standards pertaining to 9-1-1 and related or supporting services, as well as a roadmap/strategic plan for 9-1-1 enhancements.
  2. CITES, with the consultation of the Division of Public Safety, will have the responsibility of creating and maintaining the operational technical standards and procedures for all 9-1-1 services.
  3. CITES, as the provider of campus telephony services, will have the responsibility for the technical implementation of the campus 9-1-1 service (including E-9-1-1 and future enhancements) in accordance with this policy and the direction of the Division of Public Safety.
  4. CITES has the responsibility for maintaining sufficiently accurate location information to meet the policy requirements listed below.
  5. Units hosting data and networking systems upon which CITES-provided 9-1-1 services depend must maintain those data and networking systems and the accuracy of the data they contain sufficiently to meet 9-1-1 service requirements as defined below.

Requirements and Principles

  1. Functional service definition
    1. Must meet or exceed regulatory requirements.
    2. Must provide locatable address of caller to the 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point.
    3. The information provided may be constrained by technological limitations.
    4. Must provide notification of service outages to affected individuals.
    5. 9-1-1 service must be accessible without dialing any prefixed digits (no 9-9-1-1).
  2. Availability of 9-1-1 service (to whom is it available and where)
    1. 9-1-1 service will be delivered to all users of any campus-provided VoIP service as well as to all traditional phones (aka “land lines”).
    2. Remote users: 9-1-1 service may be extended to remote users if the service is capable of routing 9-1-1 calls to the Public Safety Answering Point local to the user. Remote users should not rely on VoIP-provided 9-1-1 and the University will accept no liability for the result of 9-1-1 calls originating from off campus.
  3. Reliability of 9-1-1 service
    1. This policy acknowledges that the 9-1-1 service will only be available while the campus network is also available, thus members of the campus community should not rely on the campus-provided 9-1-1 service
      1. during times when the network is unavailable,
      2. during times of building or campus power outages, or
      3. during periods where the service has been announced as unavailable.
    2. The service reliability goal for any campus-provided 9-1-1 service is that service availability will be the same as the campus network.
    3. Provisioned users will be required to verify acceptance of a service limitations acknowledgement as part of the provisioning process.
    4. No unit may deploy a VoIP solution without express approval from Public Safety and the Chancellor’s Office, certifying that the service meets the 9-1-1 requirements required by this policy.
  4. Requirements for University Equipment
    1. All University-owned computing equipment bought after January 1, 2012 that will be used to make phone calls must be able to support 9-1-1 services as provided by the campus VoIP solution. Exemption requests should be routed to the Office of the CIO. These should be emailed to itpolicy@illinois.edu
    2. Users may not modify or disable computing software or hardware that will be used to make phone calls such that 9-1-1 services are rendered unavailable.

Responsibilities

Public Safety will perform an annual review of campus 9-1-1 services that evaluates

  1. the adequacy of campus 9-1-1 services,
  2. the funding model for 9-1-1 services,
  3. any changes needed to this policy or operating standards and procedures, and
  4. a committee will be charged to perform this review with representatives of DPS, CITES, METCAD, Office of the Chancellor, Academic Senate and University Audits.

Definitions

  • CITES

    Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services

  • DPS

    Division of Public Safety

  • Emergency Response Location (ERL)

    In circumstances where, due to technological limitations, the precise location of a caller cannot be determined, the Emergency Response Location is the predetermined location known to be nearest to the caller that will be provided to METCAD.

  • GEOCODE

    In essence, latitude and longitude.

  • Locatable Address

    The street address, room number, associated individual, as well as any user-provided location information or Emergency Response Location if the minimum information is not available. If technologically possible it may include the building name, floor number and/or GEOCODE.

  • Location Information System (LIS)

    The service that determines the physical location of the caller.

  • METCAD

    METropolitan Computer Aided Dispatch. In this document METCAD refers to our regional dispatch center that handles 9-1-1 calls for Champaign County.

  • Provisioned Users

    Individuals who are provided (or provisioned) with an explicit phone number. Provisioned users are distinct from individuals using a common or public phone.

  • Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)

    The call center that is the final destination for an emergency call. The PSAP for Champaign County is METCAD.

  • Remote Users

    Individuals placing 9-1-1 service calls from locations not maintained by the University, such as hotel rooms, overseas, or generally off campus. This is defined here to include users connecting to a VPN service.

  • Service Availability

    Colloquially refers to the likelihood that the service is available for use at any given time. Availability is distinct from service uptime. In the context of a campus 9-1-1 service, the service may be functioning, but the network required to deliver it may not be. Thus, in this example, the service is up but not available.