What if there is a real emergency? If VoIP uses a dynamic IP address as most computers do, how will the emergency responders know where I am?
The University has deployed two emergency responder devices (for redundancy) in order to keep track of emergency calls made from VoIP phones. When you make an emergency 911 call from a VoIP phone at the University, the phone reports the physical location of the phone to the emergency responder system–building, floor, and even room number. If you move a VoIP phone to another location, it will automatically report the new location to the emergency responder system. This is tied to the phone’s hardware address. When a VoIP phone is plugged into the network, the emergency responder servers “know” what jack and port number it is plugged into, and this information is maintained in a central database, which also includes the physical room number where the jack is located. The redundancy built into the network ensures that even in the event of a catastrophe (for example, a fire in the Data Center in the Computer Science building), both the voice and data networks will continue to operate.
