I'm trying to solve the "which PSAP" problem.
In that case, consider this. If I am in Tokyo and you route me to a Tokyo PSAP, I won't be able to communicate because I don't speak Japanese. But if I were in Moscow and you route me to a Moscow PSAP, there is no problem; I can communicate there. So although I am normally a resident of London England, it may make more sense to route me to a U.S. PSAP when I am in Tokyo because that way I can explain the problem. Of course this does me no good if the emergency services in various countries are not linked up in some way. But! Aren't we talking about *IP* telephony here? Isn't it logical to include IP network connectivity to E911 centers in the solution. And if all E911 centers have resilient Internet connections to handle incoming VoIP emergency calls, then why can't they also use this to communicate with other nations. Presumably Japan could designate a center with people speaking English, Chinese, Russian and Korean to handle referrals from other countries. There have been incidents where people used their mobile phone to call a relative at home, and that relative contacted the emergency services. This has been reported several times in the British media and one case involved an emergency situation in Australia. Even this seemingly simple routing problem has to be solved in a larger context.
But it seemed to *me* that the point of the whole thread either was, or should have been, to figure out the solution before the FCC (who are guaranteed to screw it up) did it for us, no?
If the FCC decide to solve the problem through consultation then they will probably come up with the best solution that is currently possible. However, consultation only works when people with domain knowledge are willing to share that knowledge with the FCC. I know that people from the FCC, FBI, NSA and other agencies attend NANOG meetings. How often do people from the NANOG world attend FCC meetings to present possible solutions to issues? --Michael Dillon