<pre>Network Working Group                                     H. Schulzrinne
Request for Comments: 5031                                   Columbia U.
Category: Standards Track                                   January 2008


                   <span class="h1">A Uniform Resource Name (URN) for</span>
                <span class="h1">Emergency and Other Well-Known Services</span>

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   The content of many communication services depends on the context,
   such as the user's location.  We describe a 'service' URN that allows
   well-known context-dependent services that can be resolved in a
   distributed manner to be identified.  Examples include emergency
   services, directory assistance, and call-before-you-dig hot lines.

Table of Contents

   <a href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-2">2</a>
   <a href="#section-2">2</a>.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-4">4</a>
   <a href="#section-3">3</a>.  Registration Template  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-4">4</a>
   <a href="#section-4">4</a>.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-6">6</a>
     <a href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  New Service-Identifying Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-6">6</a>
     <a href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Sub-Services for the 'sos' Service . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-7">7</a>
     <a href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Sub-Services for the 'counseling' Service  . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-8">8</a>
     <a href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Initial IANA Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-9">9</a>
   <a href="#section-5">5</a>.  Internationalization Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-9">9</a>
   <a href="#section-6">6</a>.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-10">10</a>
   <a href="#section-7">7</a>.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-10">10</a>
     <a href="#section-7.1">7.1</a>.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-10">10</a>
     <a href="#section-7.2">7.2</a>.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-11">11</a>
   <a href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>.  Alternative Approaches Considered . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-13">13</a>
   <a href="#appendix-B">Appendix B</a>.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <a href="#page-14">14</a>










<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 1]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-2" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-1" href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction</span>

   In existing telecommunications systems, there are many well-known
   communication and information services that are offered by loosely
   coordinated entities across a large geographic region, with well-
   known identifiers.  Some of the services are operated by governments
   or regulated monopolies, others by competing commercial enterprises.
   Examples include emergency services (reached by dialing 9-1-1 in
   North America, 1-1-2 in Europe), community services and volunteer
   opportunities (2-1-1 in some regions of the United States), telephone
   directory and repair services (4-1-1 and 6-1-1 in the United States
   and Canada), government information services (3-1-1 in some cities in
   the United States), lawyer referral services (1-800-LAWYER), car
   roadside assistance (automobile clubs), and pizza delivery services.
   Unfortunately, almost all of them are limited in scope to a single
   country or possibly a group of countries, such as those belonging to
   the North American Numbering Plan or the European Union.  The same
   identifiers are often used for other purposes outside that region,
   making access to such services difficult when users travel or use
   devices produced outside their home country.

   These services are characterized by long-term stability of user-
   visible identifiers, decentralized administration of the underlying
   service, and a well-defined resolution or mapping mechanism.  For
   example, there is no national coordination or call center for "9-1-1"
   in the United States; rather, various local government organizations
   cooperate to provide this service based on jurisdictions.

   In this document, we propose a URN namespace that, together with
   resolution protocols beyond the scope of this document, allows us to
   define such global, well-known services, while distributing the
   actual implementation across a large number of service-providing
   entities.  There are many ways to divide provision of such services,
   such as dividing responsibility by geographic region or by the
   service provider a user chooses.  In addition, users can choose
   different mapping service providers that in turn manage how
   geographic locations are mapped to service providers.

   Availability of such service identifiers allows end systems to convey
   information about the desired service to other network entities.  For
   example, an IP phone could have a special set of short cuts, address
   book entries, or buttons that invoke emergency services.  When such a
   service identifier is put into the outgoing Session Initiation
   Protocol (SIP) [<a href="./rfc3261" title="&quot;SIP: Session Initiation Protocol&quot;">RFC3261</a>] message, it allows SIP proxies to
   unambiguously take actions, as it would not be practical to configure
   them with dial strings and emergency numbers used throughout the
   world.  Hence, such service identifiers make it possible to delegate
   routing decisions to third parties and to mark certain requests as



<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 2]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-3" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   having special characteristics while preventing these characteristics
   from being accidentally invoked.

   This URN identifies services independent of the particular protocol
   that is used to request or deliver the service.  The URN may appear
   in protocols that allow general URIs, such as the SIP [<a href="./rfc3261" title="&quot;SIP: Session Initiation Protocol&quot;">RFC3261</a>]
   request URIs, web pages, or mapping protocols.

   The service URN is a protocol element and is generally not expected
   to be visible to humans.  For example, it is expected that callers
   will still dial the emergency number '9-1-1' in the United States to
   reach emergency services.  In some other cases, speed dial buttons
   might identify the service, as is common practice on hotel phones
   today.  (Speed dial buttons for summoning emergency help are
   considered inappropriate by most emergency services professionals, at
   least for mobile devices, as they are too prone to being triggered
   accidentally.)

   The translation of service dial strings or service numbers to service
   URNs in the end host is beyond the scope of this document.  These
   translations likely depend on the location of the caller and may be
   many-to-one, i.e., several service numbers may map to one service
   URN.  For example, a phone for a traveler could recognize the
   emergency service number for both the traveler's home location and
   the traveler's visited location, mapping both to the same universal
   service URN, urn:service:sos.

   Since service URNs are not routable, a SIP proxy or user agent has to
   translate the service URN into a routable URI for a location-
   appropriate service provider, such as a SIP URL.  A Location-to-
   Service Translation Protocol (LoST) [<a href="#ref-LOST" title="&quot;LoST: A Location-to-Service Translation Protocol&quot;">LOST</a>] is expected to be used as
   a resolution system for mapping service URNs to URLs based on
   geographic location.  In the future, there may be several such
   protocols, possibly different ones for different services.

   Services are described by top-level service type, and may contain a
   hierarchy of sub-services that further describe the service, as
   outlined in <a href="#section-3">Section 3</a>.

   We discuss alternative approaches for creating service identifiers,
   and why they are unsatisfactory, in <a href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>.










<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 3]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-4" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-2" href="#section-2">2</a>.  Terminology</span>

   In this document, the key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
   "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
   and "OPTIONAL" are to be interpreted as described in <a href="./rfc2119">RFC 2119</a>
   [<a href="./rfc2119" title="&quot;Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels&quot;">RFC2119</a>].

   Terminology specific to emergency services is defined in [<a href="./rfc5012" title="&quot;Requirements for Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies&quot;">RFC5012</a>].

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-3" href="#section-3">3</a>.  Registration Template</span>

   Below, we include the registration template for the URN scheme
   according to <a href="./rfc3406">RFC 3406</a> [<a href="./rfc3406" title="&quot;Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition Mechanisms&quot;">RFC3406</a>].

   Namespace ID:  service

   Registration Information:

      Registration version:  1

      Registration date:  2006-04-02

   Declared registrant of the namespace:

      Registering organization:  IETF

      Designated contact:  Henning Schulzrinne

      Designated contact email:  hgs@cs.columbia.edu

   Declaration of syntactic structure:  The URN consists of a
      hierarchical service identifier, with a sequence of labels
      separated by periods.  The left-most label is the most significant
      one and is called 'top-level service', while names to the right
      are called 'sub-services'.  The set of allowable characters is the
      same as that for domain names [<a href="./rfc1123" title="&quot;Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support&quot;">RFC1123</a>] and a subset of the labels
      allowed in [<a href="./rfc3958" title="&quot;Domain-Based Application Service Location Using SRV RRs and the Dynamic Delegation Discovery Service (DDDS)&quot;">RFC3958</a>].  Labels are case-insensitive, but MUST be
      specified in all lower-case.  For any given service URN, service-
      identifiers can be removed right-to-left; the resulting URN is
      still valid, referring to a more generic service.  In other words,
      if a service 'x.y.z' exists, the URNs 'x' and 'x.y' are also valid
      service URNs.  The ABNF [<a href="./rfc4234" title="&quot;Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF&quot;">RFC4234</a>] is shown below.









<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 4]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-5" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


     service-URN  = "URN:service:" service
     service      = top-level *("." sub-service)
     top-level    = let-dig [ *25let-dig-hyp let-dig ]
     sub-service  = let-dig [ *let-dig-hyp let-dig ]
     let-dig-hyp  = let-dig / "-"
     let-dig      = ALPHA / DIGIT
     ALPHA        = %x41-5A / %x61-7A   ; A-Z / a-z
     DIGIT        = %x30-39 ; 0-9

   Relevant ancillary documentation:  None

   Community considerations:  The service URN is believed to be relevant
      to a large cross-section of Internet users, including both
      technical and non-technical users, on a variety of devices, but
      particularly for mobile and nomadic users.  The service URN will
      allow Internet users needing services to identify the service by
      kind, without having to determine manually who provides the
      particular service in the user's current context, e.g., at the
      user's current location.  For example, travelers will be able to
      use their mobile devices to request emergency services without
      having to know the emergency dial string of the visited country.
      The assignment of identifiers is described in the IANA
      Considerations (<a href="#section-4">Section 4</a>).  The service URN does not prescribe a
      particular resolution mechanism, but it is assumed that a number
      of different entities could operate and offer such mechanisms.

   Namespace considerations:  There do not appear to be other URN
      namespaces that serve the same need of uniquely identifying
      widely-available communication and information services.  Unlike
      most other currently registered URN namespaces, the service URN
      does not identify documents and protocol objects (e.g., [<a href="./rfc3044" title="&quot;Using The ISSN (International Serial Standard Number) as URN (Uniform Resource Names) within an ISSN-URN Namespace&quot;">RFC3044</a>],
      [<a href="./rfc3187" title="&quot;Using International Standard Book Numbers as Uniform Resource Names&quot;">RFC3187</a>], [<a href="./rfc4179" title="&quot;Using Universal Content Identifier (UCI) as Uniform Resource Names (URN)&quot;">RFC4179</a>], and [<a href="./rfc4195" title="&quot;A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for the TV-Anytime Forum&quot;">RFC4195</a>]), types of telecommunications
      equipment [<a href="./rfc4152" title="&quot;A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for the Common Language Equipment Identifier (CLEI) Code&quot;">RFC4152</a>], people, or organizations [<a href="./rfc3043" title="&quot;The Network Solutions Personal Internet Name (PIN): A URN Namespace for People and Organizations&quot;">RFC3043</a>].  tel URIs
      [<a href="./rfc3966" title="&quot;The tel URI for Telephone Numbers&quot;">RFC3966</a>] identify telephone numbers, but numbers commonly
      identifying services (such as 911 or 112) are specific to a
      particular region or country.

   Identifier uniqueness considerations:  A service URN identifies a
      logical service, specified in the service registration (see IANA
      Considerations (<a href="#section-4">Section 4</a>)).  Resolution of the URN, if
      successful, will return a particular instance of the service, and
      this instance may be different even for two users making the same
      request in the same place at the same time; the logical service
      identified by the URN, however, is persistent and unique.  Service
      URNs MUST be unique for each unique service; this is guaranteed
      through the registration of each service within this namespace,
      described in <a href="#section-4">Section 4</a>.




<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 5]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-6" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   Identifier persistence considerations:  The 'service' URN for the
      same service is expected to be persistent, although there
      naturally cannot be a guarantee that a particular service will
      continue to be available globally or at all times.

   Process of identifier assignment:  The process of identifier
      assignment is described in the IANA Considerations (<a href="#section-4">Section 4</a>).

   Process for identifier resolution:  There is no single global
      resolution service for 'service' URNs.  However, each top-level
      service can provide a set of mapping protocols to be used with
      'service' URNs of that service.

   Rules for lexical equivalence:  'service' identifiers are compared
      according to case-insensitive string equality.

   Conformance with URN syntax:  The BNF in the 'Declaration of
      syntactic structure' above constrains the syntax for this URN
      scheme.

   Validation mechanism:  Validation determines whether a given string
      is currently a validly-assigned URN [<a href="./rfc3406" title="&quot;Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition Mechanisms&quot;">RFC3406</a>].  Due to the
      distributed nature of the mapping mechanism, and since not all
      services are available everywhere and not all mapping servers may
      be configured with all current service registrations, validation
      in this sense is not possible.  Also, the discovery mechanism for
      the mapping mechanism may not be configured with all current top-
      level services.

   Scope:  The scope for this URN is public and global.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-4" href="#section-4">4</a>.  IANA Considerations</span>

   This section registers a new URN scheme with the registration
   template provided in <a href="#section-3">Section 3</a>.

   Below, <a href="#section-4.1">Section 4.1</a> details how to register new service-identifying
   labels.  Descriptions of sub-services for the first two services to
   be registered, sos and counseling, are given in <a href="#section-4.2">Section 4.2</a> and
   <a href="#section-4.3">Section 4.3</a>, respectively.  Finally, <a href="#section-4.4">Section 4.4</a> contains the initial
   registration table.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.1" href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  New Service-Identifying Labels</span>

   Services and sub-services are identified by labels managed by IANA,
   according to the processes outlined in [<a href="./rfc2434" title="">RFC2434</a>] in a new registry
   called "Service URN Labels".  Thus, creating a new service requires
   IANA action.  The policy for adding top-level service labels is



<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 6]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-7" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   'Standards Action'.  (This document defines the top-level services
   'sos' and 'counseling'.)  The policy for assigning labels to sub-
   services may differ for each top-level service designation and MUST
   be defined by the document describing the top-level service.

   Entries in the registration table have the following format:

   Service  Reference  Description
   --------------------------------------------------------------------
   foo      RFCxyz     Brief description of the 'foo' top-level service
   foo.bar  RFCabc     Description of the 'foo.bar' service

   To allow use within the constraints of S-NAPTR [<a href="./rfc3958" title="&quot;Domain-Based Application Service Location Using SRV RRs and the Dynamic Delegation Discovery Service (DDDS)&quot;">RFC3958</a>], all top-
   level service names MUST NOT exceed 27 characters.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.2" href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Sub-Services for the 'sos' Service</span>

   This section defines the first service registration within the IANA
   registry defined in <a href="#section-4.1">Section 4.1</a>, using the top-level service label
   'sos'.

   The 'sos' service type describes emergency services requiring an
   immediate response, typically offered by various branches of the
   government or other public institutions.  Additional sub-services can
   be added after expert review and must be of general public interest
   and have a similar emergency nature.  The expert is designated by the
   ECRIT working group, its successor, or, in their absence, the IESG.
   The expert review should only approve emergency services that are
   offered widely and in different countries, with approximately the
   same caller expectation in terms of services rendered.  The 'sos'
   service is not meant to invoke general government, public
   information, counseling, or social services.

   urn:service:sos  The generic 'sos' service reaches a public safety
      answering point (PSAP), which in turn dispatches aid appropriate
      to the emergency.  It encompasses all of the services listed
      below.

   urn:service:sos.ambulance  This service identifier reaches an
      ambulance service that provides emergency medical assistance and
      transportation.

   urn:service:sos.animal-control  Animal control typically enforces
      laws and ordinances pertaining to animal control and management,
      investigates cases of animal abuse, educates the community in
      responsible pet ownership and wildlife care, and provides for the
      housing and care of homeless animals, among other animal-related
      services.



<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 7]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-8" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   urn:service:sos.fire  The 'fire' service identifier summons the fire
      service, also known as the fire brigade or fire department.

   urn:service:sos.gas  The 'gas' service allows the reporting of
      natural gas (and other flammable gas) leaks or other natural gas
      emergencies.

   urn:service:sos.marine  The 'marine' service refers to maritime
      search and rescue services such as those offered by the coast
      guard, lifeboat, or surf lifesavers.

   urn:service:sos.mountain  The 'mountain' service refers to mountain
      rescue services (i.e., search and rescue activities that occur in
      a mountainous environment), although the term is sometimes also
      used to apply to search and rescue in other wilderness
      environments.

   urn:service:sos.physician  The 'physician' emergency service connects
      the caller to a physician referral service.

   urn:service:sos.poison  The 'poison' service refers to special
      information centers set up to inform citizens about how to respond
      to potential poisoning.  These poison control centers maintain a
      database of poisons and appropriate emergency treatment.

   urn:service:sos.police  The 'police' service refers to the police
      department or other law enforcement authorities.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.3" href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Sub-Services for the 'counseling' Service</span>

   The 'counseling' service type describes services where callers can
   receive advice and support, often anonymous, but not requiring an
   emergency response.  (Naturally, such services may transfer callers
   to an emergency service or summon such services if the situation
   warrants.)  Additional sub-services can be added after expert review
   and should be of general public interest.  The expert is chosen in
   the same manner as described for the 'sos' service.  The expert
   review should take into account whether these services are offered
   widely and in different countries, with approximately the same caller
   expectation in terms of services rendered.

   urn:service:counseling  The generic 'counseling' service reaches a
      call center that transfers the caller based on his or her specific
      needs.







<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 8]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-9" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   urn:service:counseling.children  The 'children' service refers to
      counseling and support services that are specifically tailored to
      the needs of children.  Such services may, for example, provide
      advice to run-aways or victims of child abuse.

   urn:service:counseling.mental-health  The 'mental-health' service
      refers to the "diagnostic, treatment, and preventive care that
      helps improve how persons with mental illness feel both physically
      and emotionally as well as how they interact with other persons".
      (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

   urn:service:counseling.suicide  The 'suicide' service refers to the
      suicide prevention hotline.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.4" href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Initial IANA Registration</span>

   The following table contains the initial IANA registration for
   emergency and counseling services.

   Service                   Reference  Description
   --------------------------------------------------------------------
   counseling                <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Counseling services
   counseling.children       <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Counseling for children
   counseling.mental-health  <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Mental health counseling
   counseling.suicide        <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Suicide prevention hotline

   sos                       <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Emergency services
   sos.ambulance             <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Ambulance service
   sos.animal-control        <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Animal control
   sos.fire                  <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Fire service
   sos.gas                   <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Gas leaks and gas emergencies
   sos.marine                <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Maritime search and rescue
   sos.mountain              <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Mountain rescue
   sos.physician             <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Physician referral service
   sos.poison                <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Poison control center
   sos.police                <a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>   Police, law enforcement

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-5" href="#section-5">5</a>.  Internationalization Considerations</span>

   The service labels are protocol elements [<a href="./rfc3536" title="&quot;Terminology Used in Internationalization in the IETF&quot;">RFC3536</a>] and are not
   normally seen by users.  Thus, the character set for these elements
   is restricted, as described in <a href="#section-3">Section 3</a>.









<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                     [Page 9]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-10" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-6" href="#section-6">6</a>.  Security Considerations</span>

   As an identifier, the service URN does not appear to raise any
   particular security issues.  The services described by the URN are
   meant to be well-known, even if the particular service instance is
   access-controlled, so privacy considerations do not apply to the URN.

   There are likely no specific privacy issues when including a service
   URN on a web page, for example.  On the other hand, ferrying the URN
   in a signaling protocol can give attackers information on the kind of
   service desired by the caller.  For example, this makes it easier for
   the attacker to automatically find all calls for emergency services
   or directory assistance.  Appropriate, protocol-specific security
   mechanisms need to be implemented for protocols carrying service
   URNs.  The mapping protocol needs to address a number of threats, as
   detailed in [<a href="./rfc5069" title="&quot;Security Threats and Requirements for Emergency Call Marking and Mapping&quot;">RFC5069</a>].  That document also discusses the security
   considerations related to the use of the service URN for emergency
   services.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-7" href="#section-7">7</a>.  References</span>

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-7.1" href="#section-7.1">7.1</a>.  Normative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-RFC1123">RFC1123</a>]  Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application
              and Support", STD 3, <a href="./rfc1123">RFC 1123</a>, October 1989.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2119">RFC2119</a>]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp14">BCP 14</a>, <a href="./rfc2119">RFC 2119</a>, March 1997.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2434">RFC2434</a>]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp26">BCP 26</a>, <a href="./rfc2434">RFC 2434</a>,
              October 1998.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3261">RFC3261</a>]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", <a href="./rfc3261">RFC 3261</a>,
              June 2002.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3958">RFC3958</a>]  Daigle, L. and A. Newton, "Domain-Based Application
              Service Location Using SRV RRs and the Dynamic Delegation
              Discovery Service (DDDS)", <a href="./rfc3958">RFC 3958</a>, January 2005.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4234">RFC4234</a>]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", <a href="./rfc4234">RFC 4234</a>, October 2005.







<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 10]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-11" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-7.2" href="#section-7.2">7.2</a>.  Informative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-LOST">LOST</a>]     Hardie, T., "LoST: A Location-to-Service Translation
              Protocol", Work in Progress, March 2007.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2142">RFC2142</a>]  Crocker, D., "MAILBOX NAMES FOR COMMON SERVICES, ROLES AND
              FUNCTIONS", <a href="./rfc2142">RFC 2142</a>, May 1997.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2822">RFC2822</a>]  Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", <a href="./rfc2822">RFC 2822</a>,
              April 2001.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3043">RFC3043</a>]  Mealling, M., "The Network Solutions Personal Internet
              Name (PIN): A URN Namespace for People and Organizations",
              <a href="./rfc3043">RFC 3043</a>, January 2001.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3044">RFC3044</a>]  Rozenfeld, S., "Using The ISSN (International Serial
              Standard Number) as URN (Uniform Resource Names) within an
              ISSN-URN Namespace", <a href="./rfc3044">RFC 3044</a>, January 2001.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3187">RFC3187</a>]  Hakala, J. and H. Walravens, "Using International Standard
              Book Numbers as Uniform Resource Names", <a href="./rfc3187">RFC 3187</a>,
              October 2001.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3406">RFC3406</a>]  Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom,
              "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition
              Mechanisms", <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp66">BCP 66</a>, <a href="./rfc3406">RFC 3406</a>, October 2002.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3536">RFC3536</a>]  Hoffman, P., "Terminology Used in Internationalization in
              the IETF", <a href="./rfc3536">RFC 3536</a>, May 2003.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3966">RFC3966</a>]  Schulzrinne, H., "The tel URI for Telephone Numbers",
              <a href="./rfc3966">RFC 3966</a>, December 2004.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4152">RFC4152</a>]  Tesink, K. and R. Fox, "A Uniform Resource Name (URN)
              Namespace for the Common Language Equipment Identifier
              (CLEI) Code", <a href="./rfc4152">RFC 4152</a>, August 2005.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4179">RFC4179</a>]  Kang, S., "Using Universal Content Identifier (UCI) as
              Uniform Resource Names (URN)", <a href="./rfc4179">RFC 4179</a>, October 2005.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4195">RFC4195</a>]  Kameyama, W., "A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for
              the TV-Anytime Forum", <a href="./rfc4195">RFC 4195</a>, October 2005.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5012">RFC5012</a>]  Schulzrinne, H. and R. Marshall, Ed., "Requirements for
              Emergency Context Resolution with Internet Technologies",
              <a href="./rfc5012">RFC 5012</a>, January 2008.





<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 11]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-12" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC5069">RFC5069</a>]  Taylor, T., Ed., Tschofenig, H., Schulzrinne, H., and M.
              Shanmugam, "Security Threats and Requirements for
              Emergency Call Marking and Mapping", <a href="./rfc5069">RFC 5069</a>,
              January 2008.















































<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 12]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-13" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="appendix-A" href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>.  Alternative Approaches Considered</span>

   The discussions of ways to identify emergency calls has yielded a
   number of proposals.  Since these are occasionally brought up during
   discussions, we briefly summarize why this document chose not to
   pursue these solutions.

   tel:NNN;context=+C  This approach uses tel URIs [<a href="./rfc3966" title="&quot;The tel URI for Telephone Numbers&quot;">RFC3966</a>].  Here, NNN
      is the national emergency number, where the country is identified
      by the context C.  This approach is easy for user agents to
      implement, but hard for proxies and other SIP elements to
      recognize, as it would have to know about all number-context
      combinations in the world and track occasional changes.  In
      addition, many of these numbers are being used for other services.
      For example, the emergency number in Paraguay (00) is also used to
      call the international operator in the United States.  As another
      example, a number of countries, such as Italy, use 118 as an
      emergency number, but it also connects to directory assistance in
      Finland.

   tel:sos  This solution avoids name conflicts, but requires extending
      the "tel" URI "tel" [<a href="./rfc3966" title="&quot;The tel URI for Telephone Numbers&quot;">RFC3966</a>].  It also only works if every
      outbound proxy knows how to route requests to a proxy that can
      reach emergency services since tel URIs do not identify the
      destination server.

   sip:sos@domain  Earlier work had defined a special user identifier,
      sos, within the caller's home domain in a SIP URI, for example,
      sip:sos@example.com.  Such a user identifier follows the
      convention of <a href="./rfc2142">RFC 2142</a> [<a href="./rfc2142" title="&quot;MAILBOX NAMES FOR COMMON SERVICES, ROLES AND FUNCTIONS&quot;">RFC2142</a>] and the "postmaster" convention
      documented in <a href="./rfc2822">RFC 2822</a> [<a href="./rfc2822" title="&quot;Internet Message Format&quot;">RFC2822</a>].  This approach had the advantage
      that dial plans in existing user agents could probably be
      converted to generate such a URI and that only the home proxy for
      the domain has to understand the user naming convention.  However,
      it overloads the user part of the URI with specific semantics
      rather than being opaque, makes routing by the outbound proxy a
      special case that does not conform to normal SIP request-URI
      handling rules and is SIP-specific.  The mechanism also does not
      extend readily to other services.

   SIP URI user parameter:  One could create a special URI, such as
      "aor-domain;user=sos".  This avoids the name conflict problem, but
      requires mechanism-aware user agents that are capable of emitting
      this special URI.  Also, the 'user' parameter is meant to describe
      the format of the user part of the SIP URI, which this usage does
      not do.  Adding other parameters still leaves unclear what, if





<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 13]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-14" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


      any, conventions should be used for the user and domain part of
      the URL.  Neither solution is likely to be backward-compatible
      with existing clients.

   Special domain:  A special domain, such as "sip:fire@sos.int" could
      be used to identify emergency calls.  This has similar properties
      as the "tel:sos" URI, except that it is indeed a valid URI.  To
      make this usable, the special domain would have to be operational
      and point to an appropriate emergency services proxy.  Having a
      single, if logical, emergency services proxy for the whole world
      seems to have undesirable scaling and administrative properties.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="appendix-B" href="#appendix-B">Appendix B</a>.  Acknowledgments</span>

   This document is based on discussions with Jonathan Rosenberg and
   benefited from the comments of Leslie Daigle, Keith Drage, Benja
   Fallenstein, Paul Kyzivat, Andrew Newton, Brian Rosen, Jonathan
   Rosenberg, Martin Thomson, and Hannes Tschofenig.

Author's Address

   Henning Schulzrinne
   Columbia University
   Department of Computer Science
   450 Computer Science Building
   New York, NY  10027
   US

   Phone: +1 212 939 7004
   EMail: hgs+ecrit@cs.columbia.edu
   URI:   <a href="http://www.cs.columbia.edu">http://www.cs.columbia.edu</a>




















<span class="grey">Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 14]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-15" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5031">RFC 5031</a>                      Service URN                   January 2008</span>


Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).

   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
   contained in <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp78">BCP 78</a>, and except as set forth therein, the authors
   retain all their rights.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
   THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
   OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
   THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp78">BCP 78</a> and <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp79">BCP 79</a>.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   <a href="http://www.ietf.org/ipr">http://www.ietf.org/ipr</a>.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.












Schulzrinne                 Standards Track                    [Page 15]
</pre>