How to Set Up an to dial 911

[MichaelSr]

Just got my OBI200 set up and it's working great!

Where do I contact to set up the ability to dial 911 service?

Thanks!

[A_Friend]

There are several companies widely discussed here which can sell you the service.  Just subscribe and add one to another ITSP/SP setup.  I'm using Callcentric.com.  It's $1.50/month for E911 service.  As an added bonus from them, you can get a "free" DID with unlimited inbound calling, although it's in NY State.  And an iNum, which might be useful for something.  Their outbound rates aren't great, but if you're doing all your outbound on GV, who cares?

Then, you need to add something to the "Outbound Call Route" under Phone to use the Callcentric account for 911 calls.  It'll look something like this:  {911:sp4},

Just add it to the front of the string.  You might have to also twiddle the digit map on the SP to allow three digit numbers, I can't remember -- it's been a while...

[SteveInWA]

Note that you do not need to modify any digit maps.  If you configure the Google Voice and Callcentric SPs via the basic OBiTALK device page, it will have a check-box to tell OBiTALK to use your specified service provider for 911.  It will take care of setting up the call routing.

[A_Friend]

If you configure the Google Voice and Callcentric SPs via the basic OBiTALK device page...

I'm now terrified by the ObiTalk portal.  How do you keep it from updating your firmware to 5897EX?  That wrecked a perfectly good setup.  I had everything working fine, all my settings manually restored Thursday morning.  Sometime during the day, the software updated and I was back to square zero, with Google Voice misbehaving exactly as it was under XMPP.  Only this morning did I stumble over advice to downgrade the firmware and try to lock it in.  That worked.

My advice remains, until this problem is well-documented, admitted to, and fixed by Obihai/Polycomm, do everything you can to keep your firmware 5859EX.  If you have to, downgrade to it, get Google Voice working, and disable ObiTalk provisioning and updating, verify that GV is still working on your device by making multiple, different calls, and then load everything else manually.

Right now, the provisioning for Google Voice on ObiTalk is incompatible with the firmware they're pushing.  Your GV will stop working correctly and you'll get the missing audio problem everyone's yelling about.

[SteveInWA]

At the moment, I have seven different OBiTALK devices, including a 202, two 200s, and four OBi IP phones, all successfully running with the latest firmware, purely configured on the portal.

Occasionally, over the years, there have been a few instances of bugged firmware.  The hundreds of thousands of users whose devices work fine don't post here, so whatever you read is not representative of the entire user population; only the people with problems or questions.

The Google Voice<-->OBiTALK platform is currently undergoing major updates, and some previously-undiscovered bugs are surfacing.  It will take some time for this to become stable.  The end result will be worth the pain, as the new infrastructure is higher-performance and more up-to-date, and it will be the single platform to support all of Google's VoIP offerings, including the built-in VoIP calling now rolling out to desktop and Android users, and for OBiTALK, Project Fi, and Google Fiber Phone.

The problematic firmware you dealt with has already been replaced today.  The 200/202 firmware now being pushed from the portal works, and it is build 3.2.2 (Build: 5898EX).

There is a culture of "anti-evil-business, DIY, keep your hands off my stuff" on DSLReports and elsewhere, which in practice, is more emotional than warranted.  It's your device, make your own decision as to how you want to support it.

[A_Friend]

There is a culture of "anti-evil-business, DIY, keep your hands off my stuff" ...

Well, that's not where I'm coming from.  I come out of a financial-company systems background, and all I expect/want is stability.  I don't want upgrades or changes unless they fix a problem that I'm actually having.  And, especially with a utility device like an ATA, I just want it to behave like an appliance.  It's not that I'm allergic to change, it just has to fit my cost/benefit analysis.

We've just had a good example of what can go wrong when your appliance gets unnecessarily "blown out of the water" by an external system.

OTOH, I agree that for most people, the portal is the best way for them to configure/manage their device.  As a systems guy, though, especially one who started early on with an Obi100 and had to struggle learning how to administer it, I have enough experience now, and print copies of the 141-page September 2011 and 202-page August 2012 Device Administrator's Guide on my shelf.  It's a shame they've made it impossible to configure your own device to work with Google Voice with the stock firmware.  I don't understand why they did this.  When I use the portal to configure Google Voice, I do so grudgingly.  Yes, it makes it easy to do, but we should have the option, and we don't.  What would it take to configure your own?  A few more steps and another 5 minutes?

One very valid gripe I have with the portal is that just by connecting to it, it wipes out all your settings.  Why?  My 202 has a bunch of non-trivial settings, including two other carriers and some international least-cost routing decisions, which I need to update now and again.  Until I discovered XML Notepad (http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=14342.msg91709#msg91709),
wiping out my settings looked like it was going to cost me hours of restoration work.

So, until the portal actually works the way I want it to, I'll continue to avoid it whenever I can.  It has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or system philosophies.  It's just about seeking device stability and trying to avoid unnecessary work at inconvenient times.

[GPz1100]

^^Well said.  Unfortunately, it seems cloud managed hardware is here and more on the way.  Consider Tesla's vehicles which are capable of receiving OTA software updates.

Perhaps I'm old school but I too firmly believe, if it's not broke, don't fix it!  I have a windows 8 pc that was built/configured in late 2012, receiving the then available updates.  To date no further updates (windows or bios) have been applied.  It can go for months without a reboot and is fully stable.

I think the goal of obitalk portal was to appeal to the masses.  As you've discovered, setting this thing up manually is no easy task.  That's good and bad.  The masses want a turnkey solution, the DIY want full control.  I say give the customer the _OPTION_ of which method to use.  Don't force one particular one down their throats.

[SteveInWA]

It's not obvious to hobby/personal consumer users, but Obihai (now Polycom's) primary customer base is medium to very large enterprise business users and customers of ITSPs and carriers.  That market cannot be managed by locally changing settings.  It needs a comprehensive remote deployment and management platform, to provision, upgrade and manage hundreds to thousands of devices.  It is one of the primary reasons that Polycom bought Obihai, to leverage their deployment and management technology.

This is no different than organizations that support hundreds to hundreds of thousands of Microsoft product users, via remote deployment and management.

The current and future direction for IT is cloud-based.  The days of the harried IT technician replacing parts in a rack of servers or telecom gear is over.  IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have all moved to cloud computing.  I started my 30+ year career in IT and networking, installing and fixing mainframe, midrange and PC hardware.  With today's high labor costs and shortages of skilled workers, I fully understand and embrace this transition.

Google Voice is a cloud-based service.  If you want a fully DIY solution, then use a "barebones" SIP ITSP.

[A_Friend]

^^Well said.  Unfortunately, it seems cloud managed hardware is here and more on the way.  ... The masses want a turnkey solution, the DIY want full control.  I say give the customer the _OPTION_ of which method to use.  Don't force one particular one down their throats.

You know what?  I would have a whole lot less objection to using the portal IF IT ACTUALLY WORKED!

Instead, it wipes out all your settings when you attach, won't accept backup files without jumping through hoops, doesn't show SPs added via Restore and Obi Expert on the Dashboard, nukes all your speed dials unless you add them back individually by hand on the portal's website.  Edited backup files, with GV removed from the file, used to load in earlier firmware without hurting GV, but now wreck GV anyway, and there's no way to reload credentials or even delete SP1 and re-do it without GV ending up on SP2.  Well, unless you do a factory reset, delete your device and re-add it to the portal.

It's not even a question of "choice."  It's a question of "why doesn't this work right?"