Need some very basic info about 911 providers

[glnz9]

I now have all my original copper telephone lines in GoogleVoice, on two Obi devices.  (My ISP is Verizon FIOS at 400 Mbps.)
But of course there is no 911 service unless I add it.
Looking for the cheapest 911 add-on, I web-chatted with voip.ms, asked some VERY BASIC questions and got some but not all answers.  The transcript is below.
Bottom line Qs are these -
1) I want to stick with GoogleVoice for my normal telephone calls.  Is the 911 service an add-on so that if there's an emergency and I pick up the phone and dial 911, I'm connected?  Or does the call require some preceding codes so Obi knows I'm selecting the 911 provider and only then places the call through it?
2) What are the total costs anyway?
3) How does gv911.com compare to voip.ms?


Chat Transcript

10:35:01 AM [Me] Can I get E911 only on my existing GoogleVoice + Obi setup - is this possible? How much?
10:35:21 AM [Juan Carlos] Hello [MyName], how are you?
10:35:31 AM [Me] Great - and you?
10:36:40 AM [Juan Carlos] Great, you have to active e911 per account, not per device
10:37:13 AM [Me] Will that put the E911 on my phone (desk phone - Obi200 - GoogleVoice)?
10:38:11 AM [Juan Carlos] On your account, you can go to Main Menu >> Account Settings >> General >> e911 Default CallerID
10:38:26 AM [Me] How much for only E911?
10:38:27 AM [Juan Carlos] You set which account do you want to enable e911
10:39:01 AM [Juan Carlos] e911 cost $1.50 for setup and $1.50 monthly
10:39:38 AM [Me] So - first I create an account at voip.ms, and then I tell it to add E911 to my existing Obi?
10:40:37 AM [Juan Carlos] You create an account. Register your account wih your device. When you call 911 from that account, you will trigger the e911.
10:41:40 AM [Me] Right now, when I pick up my desk phone (connected to my Obi200) and dial out, I know that I am using the GoogleVoice service. I want that to continue. If I diall 911, your service picks up automatically?
10:43:02 AM [Juan Carlos] No, you need to have a line designated for VoIP.ms service. If you call using that line to 911, then it will use e911
10:46:57 AM [Me] I don't have any more free lines or extra Obi200 devices.
10:47:00 AM [Juan Carlos] The multi line is something many devices (I believe Obi200 has)
10:48:11 AM [Me] Obi200 has one phone line going out to an analog phone - that's my setup now. But I know that the Obi200 can have more than one SIP service for that phone although I do not know how that works. Is that what you are describing?
10:48:37 AM [Juan Carlos] Yes, that's it.
10:49:00 AM [Me] Do you have a guide or a video that shows this?
10:50:19 AM [Juan Carlos] https://wiki.voip.ms/article/OBi_100/110_%26_OBi_200 This is a guide on how to set the OBI 200, hope it is helpful
10:50:56 AM [Me] Final Q - your bill would be $1.50/month subtotal. What is the total after all fees and taxes? I'm in New York City.
10:53:17 AM [Me] Sorry - if I setup the E911 on the Obi for that one phone, and I need to call 911, do I first have to dial a prefix to tell the Obi I am using your SIP and not the GoogleVoice SIP? I'm not likely to remember in an emergency.
10:53:37 AM [Juan Carlos] For using the e911 with us, you will also need a DID number. The did number per minute plan is $0.85 monthly and $0.009 for incoming calls. So you will be paying $1.50 + $0.89 = $2.39 monthly
10:54:38 AM [Juan Carlos] You just have to call from the device registewred with VoIP.ms
10:54:53 AM [Me] $2.30 monthly would again be a subtotal. What would be the total?
10:55:17 AM [Me] And "just have to call from the device" is again a bit confusing. I just pick up the phone and dial 911?
10:56:02 AM [Juan Carlos] Yes. Just pick up the phone and dial 911, but you need to have a connection with VoIP.ms as described on the guide I shared
10:56:38 AM [Juan Carlos] We do not charge taxes. You will pay what is on your city's regulations.
10:56:42 AM [Me] Does your service feed my location to the NYC 911 emergency operator?
10:56:59 AM [Juan Carlos] Yes, that is the e911's funtion
10:57:17 AM [Juan Carlos] And your address will be recorded once you set up the e911
11:00:18 AM [Me] You don't have a YouTube video showing the process?
11:00:55 AM [Juan Carlos] We don't. your device should have some guides too.
11:01:39 AM [Me] Thanks Juan Carlos - I think that's all for today.   

Thanks.

[drgeoff]

An OBi can be configured to automatically select, based on the dialled number, which Service Provider an outgoing call will be routed to.  911 calls can be sent to voip.ms while others use GV.  No prefix needed for either.

[glnz9]

Dr. G - that's good news!

But how does a non-tech do this?  I'm afraid that if I make a mistake, all my telephone calls will be routed through Kazakhstan ... at $1.77 per minute.

(FWIW, I have the OBi Device Administration Guide from 2013, but it reads as if it had been translated from the original Mongolian into Kazakh.)

[drgeoff]

This is actually simpler than the following may appear at first reading.

After you have configured voip.ms on the OBi200 proceed as follows.

Page 142 of that Admin Guide shows you the default OutboundCallRoute for the phone port of an OBi200.  That is what determines which SP is used for an outgoing call.  You are going to insert the following immediately before what is already there.

{911:SP3},

assuming voip.ms has been configured on SP3.  If not change the 3 as appropriate.

On your dashboard at obitalk.com enter the Expert mode.  Look for the gearwheel icon containing a red E on the line for your Obi200.  (If it is not present click on 'Edit Profile', scroll to the bottom and tick the box 'Enable OBi Expert Entry from Dashboard'.)

Click on that icon. In the column just to the right of the Amazon ads for OBihai items click on 'Physical Interfaces', then on 'Phone'.  The OutboundCallRoute line will be near the top, to the right.

To make the field editable, both boxes at the right hand end of the line must be unticked.  Click them as necessary to achieve that.  You will then be able to click on the existing text and have a cursor there.  Move the cursor to the very beginning and insert the above rule which sends 911 calls to the desired SP.  Then click the 'Submit' button at the bottom of the page.  Your OBi will reboot.

[glnz9]

  
Dr. G -- Simple is good.  And I understand what you wrote.

But -- first -- when I go to add voip.ms or gv911.com to my ObiHai, will it automatically appear in SP2 or SP3 and leave my GoogleVoice in SP1 alone?

Or - how exactly does one add voip.ms or gv911.com as a second telephony provider to ObiHai?  (Adding the original GoogleVoice was very easy -- too easy.)

And -- any thoughts as to which of voip.ms or gv911.com is better (and cheaper)?

Thanks again.
 

[drgeoff]

 
Dr. G -- Simple is good.  And I understand what you wrote.

But -- first -- when I go to add voip.ms or gv911.com to my ObiHai, will it automatically appear in SP2 or SP3 and leave my GoogleVoice in SP1 alone?

Or - how exactly does one add voip.ms or gv911.com as a second telephony provider to ObiHai?  (Adding the original GoogleVoice was very easy -- too easy.)

And -- any thoughts as to which of voip.ms or gv911.com is better (and cheaper)?

Thanks again.
 

On your dashboard click on the word 'OBi200'.  Then look at the section 'Configure Voice Service providers'. Click the light blue gearwheel on the SP2 line.  Click 'Next' at bottom right.  Click 'Accept'.  Click on voip.ms or 'Generic Service Provider' if going with gv911.com.  You'll need SIP account info to proceed.

I don't use 911 as I'm not in the USA so the only advice I give you is that you want to be 100% sure that whoever is providing your 911 service is 100% dependable when you need it.

[glnz9]

  
  Dr. G - Very good!  Would not have found this on my own. 

I will need to find the generic / manual info for gv911.com.

Shall continue when I get more info about the two providers and the costs. 

Now - I actually have two Obi devices on my LAN that connect two physical phones to two different Google Voice numbers (and those two different GV numbers are associated with two different Gmail accounts).  One phone is my original 212 tel number, and the other is my wife's.

Is there any trick to getting a SINGLE voip.ms or gv911.com account to service both setups with only a single monthly charge?

Please stay tuned to this channel!

Thanks.
 

[Taoman]

 
Is there any trick to getting a SINGLE voip.ms or gv911.com account to service both setups with only a single monthly charge?

Easily done either way. For VoIP.ms, you must first purchase a VoIP.ms DID. You then activate/enable E911 for that DID. For the second OBi, you would just create a subaccount in the VoIP.ms portal and use the SIP credentials from that to register your second OBi to VoIP.ms. Any 911 call from either OBi would/must display the same VoIP.ms DID phone number as the outgoing CID.

GV911.com is entirely different. You don't register your OBi devices to gv911.com so you don't configure SP2 like you would with VoIP.ms. It's a simple redirect (configuration change on your OBi) of a 911 call to a number they provide. You add all your info into the gv911 database (name, address, phone number, etc) and they provide you with a number to configure in your OutboundCallRoute. An example of how this is done is in the link below.
So any 911 call on either OBi would go out on their own individual GV lines but to the same GV911 phone number.
(Edit: I just realized this probably wouldn't work because your outbound CIDs would be different and GV911 wouldn't recognize the second GV CID.)
http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=1607.0

What I don't know is how the back end works with GV911. Once the 911 call gets redirected to the GV911 provided number then what happens? How exactly does the call get to the correct PSAP?

Disclaimer: I don't subscribe to GV911.com so I'm just assuming that's how things work based on what I've read. If someone knows better please correct me.

[glnz9]

  
Taoman - superb!  Many thanks.

Everyone - still looking for your thoughts  on pros and cons between voip.ms and gv911.com - and let's compare Anveo also.
Both quality and monthly price, for either one or two ObiHai GoogleVoice lines.

Fire away!