FCC Mandates VoIP Wiretap Rules - Understanding CALEA

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CALEA [Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act] compliance is a legal obligation imposed on all carriers covered by the statute. According to the FBI, “lawfully-authorized electronic surveillance is considered to consist of both the interception of communications content (commonly referred to as wire taps) and the acquisition of dialing and signaling information used to identify the call (e.g. DNIS [Dialed Number Information Service]) through the use of pen registers (lawful acquisition of certain outgoing, dialing, routing, addressing or signaling information) and/or through the use of trap and trace (source of a wire or electronic communications) devices.”

What follows is the standard global legacy interface with the key interfaces:

HI1 [Handover Interface One] - Administrative Information
HI2 [Handover Interface Two] - Intercept Related Information
HI3 [Handover Interface Three] - Content of Communications
LI1 [Lawful Interception interface One] - Interception Procedures

Since this part of an ongoing Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the FCC [Federal Communications Commission], a review of FCC documents is encouraged for the latest rules and regulations. The FCC indicated “the broadband access service and ISP [Internet Service Providers] may not be able to easily isolate call-identifying information for VoIP [Voice over Internet Protocol] without examining the packet content.”

While it is understood that nearly every IP is examined in details for data type, protocol, port, source/destination address, it may be a considerable effort to retrieve digits dialed or DDE [Dialed Digit Extraction] used in the various methods used in the PSTN [Public Switched Telephone Network] such as inband signaling or SS7 [Signaling System 7].

A new standardized approach has emerged for TTP [Trusted Third Party] service called network MS [Mediation Service] (L1 Provider Premises) and LEMF [Law Enforcement Monitoring Facility]. According to the FCC, “individual carriers are free to choose any technical solution that meets the assistance capability requirements of CALEA.” There are a number of different approaches to this issue. Internal, Adjunct, and Integrated concepts will be discussed next; however there may be many other viable concepts. The FCC requires that “all domestic communicates be transmitted through U.S. earth stations or routes through a POP [Point Of Presence] that includes a network switch or router that is located in the U.S. While other countries have adapted CALEA-like regulations, there are many problems to be overcome for international interception.

Background
The remainder of this tutorial is an introduction, not an in-depth analysis of 911. According to the National Emergency Number Association, the main characteristic of E-911 is the capability of the E-911 Tandem CO [Central Office] to selectively route a 911 call originated from any station (telephone number) in the E-911 service area to the correct primary (controlling) PSAP [Public Service Answering Point] designated to serve the originating station’s location.

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