2008 Woodie Awards
UNT professor to renovate 911 call system
Grants go toward improving security
Taylor Short
Issue date: 8/7/08 Section: NEWS
Ram Dantu of the computer science and engineering faculty will lead a multi-university research project to renovate Internet-based 911 emergency calls.
Dantu received two grants totaling $1.05 million from the National Science Foundation to lead a four-year project to investigate vulnerabilities in Voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, a growing technology that turns audio signals into digital data to be transmitted over the Internet.
"There are a lot of benefits to using Internet telephone services," Dantu said. "It is less costly and easier to maintain."
Soon, Internet-based phone services provided by companies such as Vonage and AT&T will replace the standard wired connection, he said.
It is important for 911 services to be able to locate callers by physical location, but Voice-over-Internet protocol calls are linked to an Internet address, which could make locating the caller nearly impossible.
"There are a lot of problems if you want to use VoIP phones for 911 services because they can't recognize where you are," Dantu said. "You can be in New York, but logged into a Dallas address. If you call 911, they will think you are in Dallas."
Rita Rodriguez, the NSF project director, said the security issue is extremely important.
"This research deals with a number of critical aspects needed to help prevent possible threats," she said. "It will also give students at these schools a chance to get real life research experience."
The project is a collaboration among UNT, Columbia University and Texas A&M University. The entire grant for the project is $1.34 million, with UNT's portion totaling $650,000 to create a platform for research and experimentation of next generation 911 services.
A second grant of $400,000 for additional research will go toward securing 911 call centers from outside attacks that would tie up all available lines. This would ensure available service during large-scale emergencies, provide neighborhood notifications and enhance 911 services for the deaf and hearing-impaired through videophones and instant messaging.
"The second grant will be used to develop infrastructure and instrumentation to work on top of it," Dantu said. "To do any research, you need to have both of them."
Dantu received two grants totaling $1.05 million from the National Science Foundation to lead a four-year project to investigate vulnerabilities in Voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, a growing technology that turns audio signals into digital data to be transmitted over the Internet.
"There are a lot of benefits to using Internet telephone services," Dantu said. "It is less costly and easier to maintain."
Soon, Internet-based phone services provided by companies such as Vonage and AT&T will replace the standard wired connection, he said.
It is important for 911 services to be able to locate callers by physical location, but Voice-over-Internet protocol calls are linked to an Internet address, which could make locating the caller nearly impossible.
"There are a lot of problems if you want to use VoIP phones for 911 services because they can't recognize where you are," Dantu said. "You can be in New York, but logged into a Dallas address. If you call 911, they will think you are in Dallas."
Rita Rodriguez, the NSF project director, said the security issue is extremely important.
"This research deals with a number of critical aspects needed to help prevent possible threats," she said. "It will also give students at these schools a chance to get real life research experience."
The project is a collaboration among UNT, Columbia University and Texas A&M University. The entire grant for the project is $1.34 million, with UNT's portion totaling $650,000 to create a platform for research and experimentation of next generation 911 services.
A second grant of $400,000 for additional research will go toward securing 911 call centers from outside attacks that would tie up all available lines. This would ensure available service during large-scale emergencies, provide neighborhood notifications and enhance 911 services for the deaf and hearing-impaired through videophones and instant messaging.
"The second grant will be used to develop infrastructure and instrumentation to work on top of it," Dantu said. "To do any research, you need to have both of them."
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