Subject: Protocol Action: 'Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Callback' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-ecrit-psap-callback-13.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:43:34 -0700

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Callback'
  (draft-ietf-ecrit-psap-callback-13.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the Emergency Context Resolution with
Internet Technologies Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Richard Barnes and Gonzalo Camarillo.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ecrit-psap-callback/

Technical Summary

After an emergency call is completed (either prematurely terminated by the emergency caller or normally by the call taker) it is possible that the call taker feels the need for further communication. For example, the call may have been dropped by accident without the call taker having sufficient information about the current situation of a wounded person. A call taker may trigger a callback towards the emergency caller using the contact information provided with the initial emergency call. This callback could, under certain circumstances, be treated like any other call and as a consequence it may get blocked by authorization policies or may get forwarded to an answering machine.

The IETF emergency services architecture specification already offers a solution approach for allowing PSAP callbacks to bypass authorization policies to reach the caller without unnecessary delays. Unfortunately, the specified mechanism only supports limited scenarios. This document discusses shortcomings of the current mechanisms and illustrates additional scenarios where better-than-normal call treatment behavior would be desirable. A solution based on a new header field value, called "psap-callback", for the SIP Priority header field is specified to accomplish the PSAP callback marking.

Working Group Summary

This document represents strong work group consensus and group participation in having worked out the details of the mechanism described. There were no significant controversies that were not overcome during the development stage. A successful document development history is documented in the email list archive.

Document Quality

No existing implementations are known to exist. Several vendors have shown interest, and have also been involved in the development and review of the document.

Personnel

Document shepherd: Roger Marshall (ECRIT co-chair)
Responsible Area Director: Richard Barnes (RAI AD)