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FCC: VoIP Providers Must Provide 911 Services
acadiel writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the FCC will require VoIP providers to provide 911 location services. This will mean extra $$$ that the VoIP providers will have to put out, which ultimately means extra $$$ that the consumer will have to put out. This is the first step in regulating an industry that should have been left alone..." I hope network end-points and physical location aren't going to be too tightly linked; one of the appeals of VoIP is using it from anywhere that has an adequate Internet connection.
Leave it to big business government corporate interests to come together in the name of:
- Slowing down technology innovation
- Inhibiting more technological innovation through excessive taxation and legislations
- Trying to play daddy and take care of its citizens like we're total imbasoles
No thanks. I'll stick with free, open-standard technologies like TCP/IP, Linux, etc.
I have a serious question though: has anything ever NOT been ruined by standardization/regulation?
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Isn't this going to just push VoIP companies overseas where there won't be as tight regulation? It doesn't matter to the end user in the long run where the physical servers are located afterall.
So, since servers can be anywhere in the world for VoIP, it's going to be like calling 911 from your cell phone-- no address unless you give them one, no identity data until you give them some. Great.
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I'm using Vonage for VoIP phone service, and they already allow Dialing 911.
Are there other VoIP service providers that don't?
I don't see what the problem is... Would you rather sign up for your new VoIP provider, then find out when you're being robbed or whatever that the police can't find where you are, or worse, not be able to reach them through 911?
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
i'm not a big fan of regulation, but requiring access to emergency services seems like a pretty reasonable request. the tone of this story seems to indicate that the government mandating that people are able to call for emergency service is somehow a bad thing. it's in the "your rights online" section, but i don't see where my rights are being trampled.
Perhaps, those who want 911 locating service should actually subscribe to it rather than the government mandating it.
M
I take offense at this article that things are being regulated that are "better off being left alone". I'm sorry, but requiring 911 features is not an excessive regulation. So users of the VoIP services are going to have to pay more - big deal. Having 911 access is very important and often means the difference between life and death, or extinguished fire versus hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. Since the VoIP services aren't capable of being altruistic and offering a very much needed service, the government needs to step in and enforce these regulations. This is what the government is supposed to do, and is certainly not "government overstepping its bounds"!
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Furthermore, I assume this only applies to VOIP providers that interface with POTS?
Hopefully at some point in my lifetime, we'll get rid of POTS, and just eveolve to something better.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Vonage added this a while back, more info here and oddly enough, my bill went down after they implemented it.
wait for it....
wait for it....
GO!!
As much as I believe that most politicians are horse thieves and some things should be less regulated (radio frequencies for public use, for example), I think I'd be pissed if I got VoIP home phone service and wasn't able to call 911 in an emergency.
C
Are YOU that out of touch that you think you need to get on your PC to make a VOIP call? VOIP phones that work just like normal phones (from the enduser view) have been in use for several years now.
I'm all for this. Sure, it'll cost more and that sucks. On the other hand, however, I feel that this was one of the larger hurdles stopping the wider adoption of VoIP. By forcing compliance through regulation you ensure that those providers who do provide the (rather important) 911 support will be able to compete price wise with those who would otherwise choose not to.
Despite everyone here seeming to think that VoIP should be totally unregulated, 911 support is IMHO a very Good Thing.
People expect - and reasonably so - that they can pick up any phone in the country, dial 911, and get an emergency operator.
And how long is it going to be before people start installing VoIP payphones, if they haven't already? What about pre-wired apartment complexes offering cheap phone service?
Use of VoIP isn't limited to geeks with a dedicated and separate VoIP setup anymore.
It was a joke but on rereading it it dosnet look like it ah well I didnt get FP either , strike 2
VOIP dosn't mean computer...
Rogers cable here in canada are offering a regular phone that runs over VOIP on their cable system. Soon here in canada we won't have to depend on the telco for land line telephone.
God, root, what is the difference?
your location? What if you go though a proxy? Will it be a felony if the proxy reports it's location to 911, and not your actual location?
Fsking? What the fuck is this word?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It would be for the person who sees you being mugged/raped/murdered.
After he finishes using his digicam/phonecam to record the event for posterity, he can call the proper authorities.
Hey numnut, I wish I did have mod points because you *are* trolling. You don't need to log on to your computer to use the phone. please mod this dumbass into oblivion!
Um...this is 911 we're talking about here. I pay 25 cents on my phone bill for 911 service. God forbid, I ever have to use 911 - but I'm thankful it is there. Good for the FCC.
So the guy who wrote this article seems to think that regulating VoIP is a bad thing. I would agree with him to a degree, but having an emergency number is critical if you ever expect VoIP to replace normal land line phones. Personally, I would not want to rely completely on VoIP if it didn't have 911. What if a family member had a heart attack or something, should people die because they don't want the FCC regulating their phone systems? I think not.
I think you don't really understand how VoIP works. In the case of Vonage, it's a box that you plug into your LAN/WAN that converts an analog telephone input into a digital signal. The appeal of VoIP is that you can take the box and plug it into any network and effectively take your phone with you. I don't think it is, nor is it intended to be, a cell phone replacement; nor is there any need to 'log on to your computer' unless you are using dialup internet access. In the latter case, you probably shouldn't be using VoIP anyway, as it requires broadband [always on] to have decent quality.
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However, if a VoIP provider does not have 911 calling capability, they should make that very clear when you sign up so you can make an informed choice.
Vote for Pedro
This seems like an obvious thing to do. I am sure that if a 911 call from whatever source could NOT be located, then most /.ers would be complain and saying why not! If cell phone or VOIP usage grows so quickly that the providers can't keep up, then slow down the growth untill they can.
Semper ubi sub ubi
Not all VoiP services are going to require you to use a PC. There is no reason why you could not have a typical looking phone connected to an internet access point (ethernet jack in the wall).
My understanding is that such phone sets are starting to come onto the market. And when your bleeding, your not likely to look at the wires attached to the phone when you call for help.
Calling 911 is one of those things that should just simply work. There is nothing unreasonable about this.
END COMMUNICATION
I am being serious here mod me down if neccesary, BUT WHAT IN GODS NAME is the use of this.
Hold on Im getting mugged/raped/murdered OH but first let me log on to my computer to dial 911
WTF ?
VoIP is more-or-less a regular telephone, with the service part coming over your Internet connection, as opposed to your old copper wire phone lines.
The phones plug into their router, but otherwise acts like any other telephone does. You don't actually need a computer to use the phone, all you need is a live Internet connection.
You're not thinking. Voice over IP is the future. In a couple of years your cell phone might be just a node on wireless internet rather than on a cell-tower based system. Wouldn't it be nice to call around the world, effectively for free, from your VOIP gadget? Now, wouldn't you want to call 911 when you're in trouble? Any cell phone sold today must connect to 911, regardless of whether it's currently subscribed. This needs to happen to any new communications systems, for all our safety. They're our airwaves, and our taxpayer dollars, and they're putting them to good use.
Hold on Im getting mugged/raped/murdered OH but first let me log on to my computer to dial 911
WTF ?
With a proper set up you won't have to log into your computer.
Your VoIP phone looks like a normal phone which happens to be plugged into your router rather than a PSTN phone jack.
This fact should be transparent to the enduser.
With a proper implementation, I should be able to rip out the PSTN phones in my house and replace them with VoIP phones that connect to my router, and no-one else in the household should notice any difference.
If you can't get to your VoIP phone in the above scenario, you wouldn't have been able to get to your PSTN phone either.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Obviously a misspelled fsck.
Think less like "headphones and microphone at a pc" and more like "normal-looking phone on a desk".
If and when these become commonplace in the home, you're going to expect it to work in a similar fashion to how your current phone works. Particularly, when you dial 911, you'd like the call routed to a local, nearby 911 service dispatcher, so they can get help to you quickly.
Most customers will prefer providers that actually offer 911 features in the first place. It's a value proposition and people usually take their family's security pretty seriously.
I think it should be left alone, people can make their own decisions. If they choose a VoIP provider without 911 then it's their problem (or perhaps they use it as a second line and have 911 on their POTS).
You must try harder for karma son.
I have no telephone. I hate the damn things, and have to use one all the time at work anyway.
Am I going to be forced to get one so that I have the ability to call 911, should the need arise?
You people are bitching about 911 service?! Do you complain when that *big government* fire department shows up with their *oppressive* hoses to save your shit when it's on fire?
:muttering under breath:
Just go move to your shack in Montana and let the rest of us have a functioning community.
(damn code filter!)
Are you really that out of touch and shortsighted to think that the only devices that use VoIP are computers. Ever heard of a wi-fi connected Palm device??? I would consider this to be pretty much a mobile phone if you're within a wi-fi access point and have VoIP software running.
I'm not a proponent of regulation of VoIP but there could be a use for 911 services with VoIP.
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
VOIP is just another technology for voice communication like two cans and a string, two way radio and POTS.
I think what they mean is that if a VOIP system is connected to the publicly switched telephone network they must give access to local 911...
Here in canada rogers cable is offering telephone lines using VOIP on their cable system. I sure hope they offer access to the local 911...
God, root, what is the difference?
Mandatory 911?
I like the idea of being able to take my home phone number with me wherever there's a decent internet connection (family/hotels/etc.). If I make a 911 call on vacation (who knows, emergency situations aren't conducive to rational thought), the EMS/Police/Fire authority is going to go to my home and be rather upset my VoIP phone told them I was at home. If you don't have 911 set up, you don't have this concern.
You can't tell the difference between a VOIP phone and a non-VOIP phone. What if there's an emergency at someone's house and they use a VOIP that didn't have a 911 number? The person in the emergency situation may not know this and try dialing 911. They end up getting who-knows-what when they are expecting help.
The stressful nature of emergencies makes it hard to think and people have it drilled into them to dial 911 in an emergency. If 911 doesn't work, the situation could get much worse.
Just imagine dialing 911 because someone's bleeding out on the floor and getting an advertisement asking you if you'd like to buy this number.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Where you have to dial the area code and then "911", ie 1-212-911.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I think what they are probably going to want for this, is something that will be mandatory and automatic. In other words, you will have it whether you really want it or not. And it will have to detect your location and update the info to the PSAP. Vonage doesn't do either of these today and I think it will be a bit spendy to do it. I know I have talked to people about the concept of having some sort of GPS device in a phone that could auto-update the location when it network connects. The problem is that an IP phone and easily move and I can take my phone a go to the neighbors or take it to a hotel that has high-speed Internet in another state and use it.
It is not unlike states like Illinois that require a company with a large facility to track the location of PBX extensions for 911 purposes. This has been a bit of a headache when people go to do VOIP in those settings. Imagine that on the Internet and there are definitely some issues to resolve.
But, without problems like that, from where would innovation come?
You know how those pigeons get scared during a time of calamity. Especially those white ones. You gotta make sure you have some backup pigeons too, in case one accidentally uses Yahoo Maps instead. Then there's the pigeons that can't tell left from right...
If a VoIP provider doesn't have to offer 911 and it doesn't offer it then I hope it is immune from lawsuits regarding 911. People will also hopefully keep some other means of calling 911 then. However, if a VoIP provider offers 911 people might use that as their only means of calling for help in an emergency and if it doesn't work someone may die, there may be huge lawsuits, etc. I'm sure this will happen soon enough.
- Increasing cost for IP phones, where they were competing on cost;
- Mandating greater functionality for IP phones, in one of the few areas where traditional landlines had an edge
Thus for example a friend of mine with an IP phone at home has kept a minimal landline solely for the purpose of being able to dial 911.Ultimately, by reducing the differentiation of these services, the decision is less damaging to either IP Phone providers or the Telcos than it is to the consumer - who used to be able to make a choice, less $ or better 911, but in the future will not be able to.
Sorry Charlie! The whole market just got that much less free, and that much less interesting.
-renard
back before 911 even existed, what did people do?
they actually kept the phone numbers of the local police, fire, and medical services next to their phone.
I dont see why we cant ask people who choose not to use regular phone lines to be a little bit responsible for themselves
Just email the police, ambulance or fire department at 911@hotmail.com. You lunix nuts have lost it!
"The FCC should watch and make sure the things we are doing voluntarily actually happen," said Tom Evslin, chairman of ITXC Corp., part of a new lobbying group opposing regulation of Internet phone services. "We do not believe it's necessary for the FCC to regulate in this area. I believe without regulation, we will be effective, and the result will be much better emergency services."
Many people don't think about them, or think about needing them, until an actual emergency strikes. Then it's too late. It's not a matter of if it is important to consumers, but rather if it is important to society. If we left all safety related decisions up to "the consumers" we'd be in a world of trouble. The majority isn't always right, and our system was built to acknowledge that.
A true majority-rule democracy would do just that. Everyone would have a direct vote on anything important and whatever the public said, would go. That's not how it works. We are a federal republic that is very democratic. People have a strong say in the government, and direct vote on many things, but their word is not final and they don't get to control everything directly.
Another poster alluded to this, but do you also think individuals should be able to subscribe for police and fire protection? If you are being held hostage, the police look up your details in their database, see that you aren't a subscriber, and refuse to help out? Your house is burning down and you and your family are trapped inside, but the fire department drives past your house because you didn't sign up for service?
I'm all for less government control and red tape, but emergency services is one of those areas which I don't mind having it mandated.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
there were those little modem viruses that would continually dial 911?
How long till we see a worm that floods 911 using VoIP from all infected hosts?
Is it even possible to do reliable location service on VoIP? It's kind of like cel: unless you have GPS built into the end-point device itself, there's simply no reliable way to determine where the end-point device is currently located. Even if you know it's IP address, there's no mapping between IP and geographic location.
They can be made to play by the FCC's rules. Rulings like this wouldn't affect totally private, seperate networks like a Ventrillo server or something. That's your own bussiness. However if you want to ofter PSTN services over the Internet that interacts with the US phone network, you have to obey US rules.
Now nothing would stop a company from existing only in Europe and Asia, for example, and then doing as they pleased. But that would mean to get calls to the US they'd need to use the PSTN, which negates the advantage of VoIP for all calls to the US. It would also cut out a large potential market.
I know for a fact that Vonage has a 911 service. I've called it. they just ask you your full address beforehand. that's the only reason I didn't go with over Vonage, as they didn't have a 911 service.
It seems to me that a VoIP provider is entirely the wrong place to route 911 calls. How is the provider supposed to know who to connect you to? Since it's IP from you to the provider, you could be anywhere when you make your call, regardless of what your home address is. If you make a 911 call from a cell phone, it should connect you to the police for the cell you're in, not your home police department, who will be useless if you're 100 miles from home.
The right way to set things up is to have the physical phone require a phone line (which need not be in service), which it can use to make 911 calls over POTS. This system should be funded out of property taxes (since it's local infrastructure).
I'm confused. Why is it that requiring a network to carry emergency services equates in the average slashdotter's mind to unwanted regulation? They're not taxing, they're not restricting, and frankly, I think the extra tenth of a cent per month each person has to shell out is responsible, when you're covering for things like fire, burglary and murder.
Consider that every telephone in the nation on the traditional network - even ones shut off for nonpayment! - must respond to 911. So, you're in a horror movie, out in the forest, being chased by a murderer, and the writer thinks it'd be cute to send you into a shack after a phone, only to have it be disconnected, so that your perfectly reasonable civilized response is useless.
In the real world, that doesn't happen. If the phone company shuts off your line, they must still respond to calls to the operator, to 911, and to repair (and they usually also respond to calls to the business office for obvious reasons.) This is a rational behavior and the law requires it as a safety measure.
I think it's quite the appropriate thing to require this of VoIP providers, just as they required it of cell phone providers. Save your battle cries and sabre-rattling for when they do bad things. Go yell at SCO or something.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
If all they want is some kind of endpoint location system, like what cell phones are supposed to get, then OK (even if it's a little more expensive).
If they make some of the phone's capabilities illegal (say, by not allowing you to plug your phone into any Internet connection without pre-approval), then they can go stuff themselves.
Tell them to use Skype.
What would happen when your broadband ISP cuts you off because you have exceeded their daily/weekly/monthly download limits?
In an emergency situation, you may not be able to give your location and they may not be able to easily locate you based on your IP address. OTOH, VOIP via laptop will require the person to be near some sort of access point, meaning a land line or cell phone should be available in case of emergency.
Of course, as soon as someone dies because they couldn't get emergency service via VOIP, you know the media will run with the story and scare the heck out of everyone who watches the 11 o'clock news.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Companies make money by pushing the envelope. They take calculated gambles on what they produce. This is a good thing: nothing ventured, nothing gained -- especially when you are using and developing techniques and technologies that have never been seen before. We have invented the 'corporation' to allow people to do this sort of thing at less risk: you can gamble millions of dollars (if you can convince people you're worth the risk) and come out the other end more or less OK regardless.
But there are some things you shouldn't be allowed to gamble with. You shouldn't gamble with water quality (how much profit can we make if we have a 10^-4 risk of Hg contamination?) You shouldn't gamble with power line reliability. You should be allowed to gamble on software reliability -- except in life support or military applications. Go crazy with your new distributed quantum computing net, but don't put it in grandma's pacemaker or a GI's helicopter until you can satisfy certain politically defined standards. Who decides what you can and can't gamble on? Amazingly, the voters.
The voters, in their wisdom, decided to make 911 service -- and the E911 extension -- something that you couldn't dispense with. They figured that the social good of being able to track down and solve emergencies at the source was more important than a few months of lower profits for Vonage et al. Disagree if you wish, but to declare all regulation off limits is to ignore the fact that some regulation is a necessary good.
Protect your liberties. Donate to the ACLU
What if I am using my computer to talk to another person on their computer, and we don't connect to the POTS lines at all... are we using VOIP and therefore required to have 911 access?
Does it depend on whether we are paying a third party to facilitate our calls?
I RTFAed, but it doesn't explain what the rule covers.
"This is the first step in regulating an industry that should have been left alone."
You'll be talking out of the other side of your mouth when you call 911 on a VoIP phone, and you get the sympathetic voice of a fast busy signal, instead of an operator telling you emergency services are on their way. But then, I guess you'd prefer to live back when fire and police services were private contracts from your insurance company, if you were lucky. All that and more can be yours, as your uninsured neighbor's housefire spreads to your roof, in your fantasy Libertaria.
Well, when you move your phone from one location to another, your IP Address may change. If your IP Address changes, and you want to use your phone, it should be programmed that when you pick up your receiver, it will AUTOMATICALLY call the Voice Mail box to allow you to update the 911 Location information. This can be done via a Voice Mail Update or Web Page.
Now here is the simple thing. When 911 call is detected, it will call 911 via the Voice Mail interface, put the caller on hold while the Voice Mail will reply to the 911 Operator with the address information OR if it the information is available via web page, the Operator's Caller ID interface would interlink with the LDAP server where the client updated the information and would query this data.
Once the operator is satisfied with address location, operator presses 1 to talk to caller and poof most info is already there.
Nothing too hard to do... Just a little upgrade for the operators to get down with the info.
The key is that if the IP Address changes again, the client must reprogram the 911 Caller info before making any calls.
*Headline News* censorship shuts down the Internet! More at 6PM!
On my old cell phone while the keys were locked, the only number I could dial was 911. While the cell phone had its keys locked in my pocket, the cell phone would dial 911 on its own whenever it felt like it.
One time I got out of a very difficult test, only to immediatly get a phone call from the police department claiming I dialed 911. When asked what the emergency was, I told them that I probably just bombed my test and my phone went ahead and called them for me. Turns out my phone was right, a week later I found that I ended up with a 40% on the test - a score which probably should have required me to have medical assistance.
This is just the first step in making VOIP just like my cell phone.. $45/month? Wait, you forgot Federal, city, state, local, 911 access fee, long distance access fee, and a bunch of meaningless abbrevations. All these fees add another $20 to my bill and it pisses me off every time I get my bill.
I'd rather they let me decide if I want access to 911 and charge per connect, make it $5 per connect.. then we wouldnt have all these bs calls to 911. I think I've used 911 maybe 10 times in the last 20 years but they charge me for it on my home phone, cell phone, and now voip.
I live in a town with no high paying jobs and I think I know why. The property taxes are higher than the county 10 miles away; the sales tax is higher than the county 10 miles away. What business would want to open a business in the city limits when they can open it 10 miles away and still get the business?
Hey government.. want commerce to keep rolling? Keep your hands out of it!
JD
Frequency Shift Keying, since we're talking about communication here
"The reality is that with the internet as we know it, tracing any IP activity to the source may or may not be possible in a reasonable amount of time."
This is very simple, when you sign up to the VOIP servcie they have a form that says...
Please Enter the physical address of the phone (this may be different then your billing addres), this information will only be used in the case this line is used to call the registered emergency services for this address. If you enter incorrect information, you encounter problems in contacting or directing emergency response to your home.
Then, when you call 911, your VOIP software sends your physical address... its not done with the IP address or whatever.
Its' about time. I'm much too lazy to reach for the phone, 4 feet away. Sitting all day in front of a computer, now and then, I get a nasty case of raster burn and leg cramps. Now, all I need is a maid. She could answer the door when the EMs knock.
How do they expect this to work?
Using Vonage as an example, their 911 goes to a fixed address, the one you have set up on the account. However, you can use your equipment anywhere you can plug in to the net. The 911 call would do you a lot of good if you take you phone on vacation to Hawaii from New York.
The easist way I can see to accomodate this is to have a GPS built in to the phone to report its position. Insert privacy warning here.
What about international calls? Even if it has my absolute location, who would receive the 911 call if I connect the phone in India? Insert India call center joke here.
This is probably a good idea, but the implementation needs a whole lot of thought.
Since VoIP is country agnostic, what would happen to me here in the UK if I dialled 911 (the emergency number here is 999)? Would I get hold of the US emergency services? This number could legitimately be assigned to another perpose here (although it isn't to my knowledge, luckily). Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick here? I know TFA is just about tracking where the 911 call comes from...
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
This seems like a thinly veiled excuse for police and 'homeland security' to be able to track down calls. Wouldn't the location of callers, for 911 purposes, be just as well handled by asking the caller where they are, or having a 'send my location' button for when the caller is lost or incapacitated (similar to a satellite distress beacon)?
Apparently sometime before I moved here (small town), the son of a rather prominent citizen here died in a farm accident or something similar. People found him, but when they dialed 9-1-1 there was no local service and apparently they got rather confused... the last thing you want to have to do is dig into the drawers and find a phone-book for "Ambulance" when somebody is lying around bleeding.
Afterwards, the father being influential and all, 9-1-1 service was instated locally.
I would not object to regulation requiring that. but requiring everyone to support it (especially since the telcos may be able to delay/make it too $$$ for the VOIP people, just to kill competition) is a first-class way to mess things up and make it cost more. Chances are VOIP is different enough that they could impliment 911 location service in a better (at least for themselvs) way than the telcos can/will.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
"
This is very simple, when you sign up to the VOIP servcie they have a form that says...
Please Enter the physical address of the phone (this may be different then your billing addres), this information will only be used in the case this line is used to call the registered emergency services for this address. If you enter incorrect information, you encounter problems in contacting or directing emergency response to your home."
What if you're using VoIP from various locations? Say, from an internet cafe, or from a hotel room while on a trip?
A relative of mine has Packet8 service; he takes the hardware (a little cisco VoIP box, iirc) with him on frequent business trips so he has a hardline number that can reach him wherever he happens to be, and from which international phone calls are cheaper than from a cell phone.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
VOIP should have a 911 function if they are to replace the PSTN network.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Why is this marked a troll? This is how they did it in the old days and this is how they still do it in many places (not in the USA).
911 is nice, but geez, come ON PEOPLE. Grow up and learn to get along with people with different opinions.
Then tell him to buy a fucking cell phone.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
The government is less interested in helping little old ladies who have fallen and can't get up - and is more interested in tracking its citizens through cell phones.
Do not be confused. The VOIP location regulation is a legal tool and governmnet monitoring tool being done under the auspices of a 911 public service.
This is totally dumb. I understand why they are doing this, but they are going about it totally wrong. 911 needs be to associated with physical connections not virtual ones. True there is no protocol so support identifying the identity, let alone the location of network nodes.
Maybe we should insist that all voip headsets have gps built in. Hmm, well, even as an optional method, I think that a pretty good idea.
Why not take advantage of the capabilities of IP? When a 911 (or 999 or 111 depending on your country) call is placed, the protocol could specify that some location meta-data is sent with the call. This needn't be limited to location - medical conditions and special needs could be transmitted as well.
Wouldn't it be cool if a diabetic 86 year old could dial 111 (in NZ, or 911 in USA) and her medical condition flashes on the screen of the emergency operator. For privacy advocates, we could have this meta-data under the control of the VoIP subscriber.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
I think you should buy a fucking cell phone and leave us alone, being happy to use VOIP with 911
Is there any way to mod the actual article itself as a Troll? I don't think I've ever seen a more trollish one...
"This is the first step in regulating an industry that should have been left alone..."
./ is. 911 service is a basic necessity,and some people would eliminate their phones for ip phones, thus giving up their 911 service.
you forgot to mention:
"in my opinion". Some people think it is important to have 911 services. Perhaps we should unplug your phone and then I'll come beat the shit out of you and you can use your ip phone to try to get help. Your a dumb ass.
Mod the shit out of this, since it shows how stupid
> 911 call centers cannot be reached by mapping to any 10-digit number. There is no 10-digit number...
See, this is the problem. It is absolutely stupid for there not to be an alternate unique 10-digit number for each public safety call center. It would be very useful for so many reasons:
Users of Voice over IP, as well as cellphones, could program the relevant emergency numbers into their speed-dial, so that pressing the "Emergency" or "Fire" button on their phones, or another designated speed-dial marked on the phone, would put them in contact with the proper locality's authorities.
More reasons:
- Your elderly parent lives two hours away. You're made aware that there's something wrong. Instead of calling your city's 911 and explaining that the problem isn't at your house but rather in such-and-such town, you have the number for her town's 911 by your phone in case of just such an emergency, getting help to her house faster.
- Your cellphone may be your primary phone. Instead of always having to call the CHP 911, you can call your local town 911 if you're at home. Also more likely to be faster.
- Obviously, it would make the job of the VOIP providers ten times easier--just maintain a database of these emergency centers, and map the "911" mnemonic to the one closest to the location on file for the user. And perhaps there could be an alternate number to call if you want to reach 911 for a different locale--for example, 415-240 is an exchange in San Francisco (Central), so if you were in SF with an IP phone registered in New York, dialing, say, *911 415-240 would lookup the most appropriate call center in San Francisco. Obviously, you would have to ask someone their phone number to do this, but it shouldn't be a huge problem--most vacationers likely have access to a "real" phone. That feature should just be there in case you need it, and if you're going to be somewhere without a land-line for a long time, you should update your location.
I think the benefits of doing this are enough that it should be done. How much effort could it possibly take to assign each one a real phone number?
Then you visit the website of your carrier, enter your password and change your address.
911 regulation for VOIP is good, it's like a standard protocol that a service provider has to match. How would you feel if you have to drive a car over city street if from one town to the next their color light is not standard? or if your car doesnt follow some regulation?
And if you're a programmer - you have to follow your company/group coding standard and regulation.
Do they want the 911 location, or the PATRIOT location? This seems like a law enforcement requirement, more than an emergency requirement at this stage of the game.
Only a masochistic, suicidal psychopath
who is bent on self-destruction would cut their telephone land-line and
rely on VoIP without locator service.
I can hear it now.
Help Needed:My house is on fire and I'm caught under a burning bookcase!!!
911 Operator:Please stay calm and tell me your location.
Help Needed:The ceiling's collapsing! Aaaaagggghhhhh!!!!
Yah... but he saved a buck or two per month!
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
I think the initial notion was that mobile phones are used most often in cars (and they were) and for auto issues where the CHP has direct jurisdiction.
They will route you to the right people, but when you're dealing with an emergency, minutes can be critical.
I learned this joy calling in a fire in a adrenalin-fueled rush ("Marge, what's the number for 911?"). "You're WHERE? Concord? Massachusetts? Why are you not in $MyTown? There's a concord here? Well anyway. !FIRE!"
Fortunately, a fire in the East Bay is also called in by 5000 home owners*.
If VOIP wants to be in the phone game, they need 911. Welcome to the 80s. And trust me, if you or a loved on slashes half his/her arm off, you don't wanna be trying to find a phone book and the firedept's number. ("I know you're bleeding, just tell me where you left the white pages").
MrChuck
* the fire was blown through eucalyptus into a cemetary (really). They found thousands of bodies afterwards ;).
This also goes for cell-phone 911.
Integrate GPS into the hardware (user-defeatable of course) to report your exact location (via separate data packets) when you dial 911.
Voila. Better than the real thing.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
The draft and others will be discussed at the IETF meeting in Seoul next week. One possibility is that instead of a nationwide emergency number, we will get a global emergency identifier, 'sos'.
That's not how it works, you clueless fuck. Go fuck a goat or read the article or something.
Will the regulation be extended to home, or small businesses use of the technologies?
Example would be requiring it to be included in gnomemeeting or netmeeting.. ( or the other 'real' implementations suited for small business's intra-business phone systems )..
( and no i didn't RTFA yet.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So they show up at my PO Box provider with the fire truck; how does that help them find me?
-- The Phantom
If VOIP evolves on the wave of decentralized P2P. And if wireless Internet projects like SFLAN become the predominant medium for these networks there will be no "VOIP Providers" to regulate.
I could see this requirement if your primary line is a VoIP line. Perhaps you would have a MAC or two and IP that indicates you are at home. Ie. software sees this MAC and the VoIP switch sees your dsl/cable modem IP, then that is you at home. If you are using VoIP on the road, the IP would be different, so 911 wouldn't really work.
That way you get to provide the e911 service to people at home and others still get the benefit. If you are staying at a hotel and using the VoIP, then just pick up the room phone and dial.
If you are a place where you have no other phone, then think if you didn't have a laptop with you - you wouldn't have the connectivity anyway, and if you do have connectivity via VoIP, then hopefully you have time to give enough info to identify your location.
$35 a month my ass! Sure it costs a bit of money to integrate into the existing phone network (so that you could call from and to regular phones), but other than that their costs are next to nothing. They don't have to bury (or hang) wires, they don't have to maintain broadband infrastructure (you're supposed to already have a BB connection) or interconnect channels (it's VoIP folks), they don't have to install base stations. So I personally am not ready to pay more than I pay for my regular phone service.
Has anybody stopped to think how this will be implemented? An ATA, which is the converter that allows you regular POTS phone to be hooked up to your internet connection, can be hooked up to any internet connection, anywhere. How is the VoIP company supposed to determine where you actually are? The answer... wait for it....
They can't!
Think about it. There is no way for them to know where your converter(ATA) is located because you can pick it up and move it anywhere you want.
If they implement this , then there will have to be some major limitations on how you can use VoIP. I guess you would have to be prohibited from moving the device, and would have to tell them every time you change ISP's.
This is the first step in regulating an industry that should have been left alone...
So your bill goes up, what, 10 cents?
"You can't tell the difference between a VOIP phone and a non-VOIP phone."
It's very easy to tell the difference. When you dial 911 on it and no one answers, it's a VOIP phone.
Does anyone else find it stupid that VOIP isn't a telephone service, and now people are complaining that 911 doesn't work on it?
Should Yahoo Messenger have 911 service?
Should Apple's iChat have 911 service?
What about the little kids walkie-talkies that have been shaped like cell phones, should they?
What about soup cans and strings, should they have 911 service?
Just because the damn thing looks like a telephone doesn't mean it's actually a telephone.
-- The Phantom
Surely this actually needs a global standard?After all, in the UK the number is 999, Australia we have 000 - who knows what it is in other countries? If there was either a system where all of these are acceptable or a new international help number so you could travel overseas and still know what to call it would also be a good idea.
We're not talking issues of free commerce here, we're talking about people's lives.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
If you want to replace the Old useless phone system with the New 100X better Hightech Voip then Replace all of it not just the parts that make you money. If you want to be free of regulations then do not bridge to the old system.
BTW:
Look at your old phone bill it has a hook schools to the internet tax. Why should non VoIP phones help pay for the Internet?
IRC 911! AIM 911! <insert TCP/IP based message system> 911!
People don't seem to understand that IP phones are just like any of these other piece of software... they just do a better job of making you think they're hardware :).
Just to illustrate...
Pretend, for a moment, that we had a popular set of E-mail servers. These servers assign customers (US only) 10 digit numbers for their accounts. Pretend a little more, and picture that the common mode of communication over these servers is zipped WAV files.
No one in their right mind would force these mail servers to have a 911@ that could respond to emergencies at the sender's location.
Even if we took it another step and put a modem in all the client's machines that called them up and played back the WAV files, then recorded a response and mailed a return... it *looks* like a phone system, but it just isn't.
n/t
Wouldn't allowing each consumer to make the individual choice if they wanted to subscribe to a more expensive service that offered 911 location services be the ultimate solution rather than voting on one solution for everybody?
> There have ALREADY been cases where people died because
> cell phones did not have 911 location services.
I'm with you, this death thing is completely out of control.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I called 911 on my Sprint PCS cell phone from downtown Palo Alto and got "We are unable to complete your call at this time. Please try again later".
People in other countries can and do get say vonage and have a US phone number with the ability to receive calls to a US number in another country and place calls to the US and Canada for one flat monthly fee.
Exactly which 911 call center will such people get connected to? VoIP is a different game.
Perhaps they should require 911 service for any VoIP company that wants to sell to people as primary phone service?
What is to be done when IPV6 finally rolls out and someone rolls out "phones" where the number dialed is the address? What do they do with the current hardware and software SIP phones?
Should AOL and MSN be required to provide 911 service?
A Nony Mouse
The right idea, but the wrong technology, GPS is virtually useless indoors, and the evolution A-GPS from Qualcomm works by supplying aiding information based on approximate knowledge of your whereabouts. Thats fine when a cell tower takes the call and can pinpoint your location to a couple of hundred metres but no use for VoIP because you litterally could be anywhere on the planet and your IP address gives no reliable consistant fix on your location. See www.rosum.com if want to a more viable solution.
This is a pretty good idea--after all, we're going to want it for cellphones, right? This is probably as good as it gets for something like a cellphone (probably better than triangulation), but it seems less useful to me than you might think for a stationary phone.
First, have you used a GPS (especially the tiny, cheap, low-power, less-than-12-channel receivers likely to be in a cellphone or IP phone) inside? GPS can definitely be sketchy. Secondly, sometimes it might be kind of hard to turn a (100-foot-uncertain--more when we're at war) set of coordinates into an understandable street address a police car can drive to: getting a domestic violence call and knowing which block it's on is an order of magnitude less useful than knowing the address.
demi
Vonage already offers 911 service, and it didn't cost me an additional cent. You have the option of enabling it or not, but I didn't see a price difference either way. Is this story just FUD?
My beef with regulating VOIP is its not ready to compete with POTS yet. While there's all kinds of reasons why 911 is a good idea, I think there's reason not to start grouping VOIP there yet. For example, mandating 911 on it now is just dangerous. POTS is regulated for 911 AND for uptime (along with other things). Suppose you have a VOIP phone as your primary, and popele assuming it's as good as a POTS phone becuase of 911 service. Power goes out. no phone. no gaurentee of IP services like POTS either. If someone digs up a phone line, there's some real pressure to fix it. If someone digs up your cable line, there isn't that same kind of concern. VOIP isn't quite ready to be included yet...and by the time it is, we should have a better definition on what a phone system is
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
I personally never knew my local emergency numbers, nor did my parents. I can think of one neighbor who might have memorized it, but his kid serious problems. The rest of the neighbors didn't know the number, and I was in enough of their houses to be pretty sure they didn't have it by the phone. (The phone in most cases as the phone company still rented the phones) If you needed help you went to the phone book (normally near the phone) and looked it up.
Note that in the case of the one neighbor who might have known the emergency number, that was only the number for the ambulance, not police or fire which were different.
I live in Australia, but have many friends in Austin, TX (my previous home). I also do some contracting for a company in austin.
I got a packet8 voip phone, and signed up for an austin telephone number to go with it. I can call austin for free, and people in austin can call me for free.
Why should I have to pay for 911 service? If I dial 911, will they fly out to stop my house from burning down/etc, or at least transfer me to the local authorities?
Even if you can't opt out "just because," you should be able to opt out based on place of residence.
Honestly, though, I don't see why they attach 911 charges per phone NUMBER. It should just be part of local taxes (be it property or income or whatever)
While I wouldn't mind the ability to call 911 when I need it, there is a greater privacy issue. In order for 911 to be effective, there needs to be excellent information regarding physical location. AKA Geographical tracking on the net. Call me tinfoil hat man, but the government has been wanting to track physical location through the net in an instant for years. Messing with those pesky subpoenas is so cumbersome. What I can't wait for is when a pedophile hacks the protocol and uses it to determine a kids physical location in an instant. Much like a cell phone, I should be able to turn it off. And here's a simple way to solve the emergency issue. A switch on a box that connects your POTS phone to your computer. In an emergency, I just have to flip a switch and 911 is enabled through a GPS receiver in the box. Too simple?
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll wipe out the species.
One reason people may be opposed to it is that I would guess few people at this point use VOIP as their only phone service. For example, I currently have a packet8 account that I use for long distance calls, but I also have a cell. If I'm already paying for GPS on my cell so people can reach me, why should I pay twice so I can call from my VOIP phone? At this stage people who sign up for VOIP are mostly early adopter techies who are aware of the 911 issue.
The other thing that makes it more difficult is that VOIP numbers, unlike POTS numbers, can use any area code/exchange. My VOIP exchange is for a town half an hour away from me, and if I wanted I could have an area code on the other side of the country. This means that getting 911 to work will be a significant expense for VOIP companies.
The fact that people have signed up for VOIP without it suggests that at least some people don't see a need for it and thus don't want to pay - either they have other phones or they can put a little note next to their VOIP with the fire department's number on it.
I have blog like everyone else
You mean that this poster is COMPLAINING about requiring 911? Really, I think that this requirement is a no-brainer. I can just imagine working at a company that solely used VoIP that wasn't required to use 911.
Worker1 "Help, I cut my arm off!"
Worker2 "I'll call 911! Oh wait we got the cheap plan. Let me look up the number of the ambulance."
A few minutes later.
Worker2 "Google is giving me too many results. I knew that we should've stolen a phone book from the payphone."
ha ha
So when you're convulsing on the floor, and you just so happened to forget to recharge your cell-phone battery, and your grandmother from out of state walks in to discover your face turning blue, I'm sure she won't be the least upset by the fact that you were to damn cheap to pay for 911 service on your state-of-the-art VoIP phone.
Even a cell phone can be instantly traced to the vicinity in which the call was placed based on signal strengths in the nearby cells.
Saying they require 911 service to be provided is almost certainly their way of elbowing VoIP out of the commercial communication industry without being accused of monopolistic practices.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In simple terms, no. In not so simple terms, no. Would you allow car manufacturers to offer cars that were cheaper but lacked basic safety features such as seat belts? Would you like to be able to buy cheaper houses that used unshielded wires?
Every industry has standards there to define what we expect from the service/goods. VOIP is a telephony service regardless of the technology. Why should VOIP be different? I agree that technologically it is going to be difficult to implement, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't have to comply with industry standards.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
If you think about it, it's highly unlikely that ppl would take the time to turn on their computers, logon, and run the software to just make an emergency call.
But like usual, one of my old sayings comes to mind: "Bureacracy; if it makes sense, it ain't gonna happen." It's like Moore's Law but for politics.
Where I work, we had to install a system by which a person calling 911 from a VoIP phone whould register at the 911 center, showing the address, and even the floor and side of the building.
For example, if you are on the east side of the 4th floor and you dial 911, this info is exactly what must show up on the 911 operators terminal.
As someone whose primary 'landline' service is VoIP (via Vonage), and having had issues with 911 performance in the past, I'm very pleased that the FCC is taking steps to improve 911 service.
Keep in mind that this will probably have more of an effect on the 911 system than the VoIP system: Vonage's chief complaint (at least publicly) is that 911 systems nationwide don't provide fair access to connectivity since they're tools of the big POTS providers, requiring those VoIP services to buy 3rd-party '911 call center' access. Such access is insufficient, and to the extent that FCC regs force 911 services to widen and make fairer access for VoIP, I'm all for it.
Also, regarding location-based emergency service, there's no reason you couldn't have a system in which you specify your number's location via webpage (as Vonage offers) and have the VoIP provider provide that data to the 911 switchboard, though it'd still be up to you to keep it current. Alternatively, it could be handled like legacy cell service, where the subscriber's home address is used and some form of indication is provided that the address is mobile.
Point being, that it seems that at least Powell is on the side of making VoIP a first-class citizen, and that's definitely A Good Thing(tm).
ps: VoIP taxation (for legacy POTS-related revenue for stuff like 911, lifeline, rural access, etc) if done, should be done flat-rate for a legacy number, so that pure net VoIP-VoIP which doesn't cross the border between net and legacy POTS isn't subject. Also, something like this could permit cheap or free outbound-only NAT'd POTS service with an inbound voicemail component (or inbound extension subdial).
I have successfully dialed 911 from my Vonage phone. Granted, it wasn't a life-threatening emergency, but it seemed to go smoothly enough.
No offense, but I believe they have a civil duty to provide 911 services whether or not they are IP based or not. Regulation or no regulation you provide a phone you should provide 911 services. It just plain common sense, not to mention a civic duty.
My celluar phone on Verizon made by LG has three options for its "GPS" functionality:
Enable all
Disable all
Disable all except 911
It is possible for me to have an expectation that my wireless company will not be able to find me. It's not guaranteed that my phone will comply with my local e911 service. Verizon can at least trace my signal to the cell tower if I have GPS disabled, but that's a multi-square-mile(km) area.
The following federally-mandated warning label would be a simple method to set expectations correctly to protect consumers:
"This software (or device) is not required to work with your local 911 service. Optional location-based 911 feature are available but are not guaranteed to work. If this is not acceptable, please return this software (or device) to your provider for a full refund."
Mandating 911 services for VOIP is as futile as requiring mobile ham radio operators to morse-code their latitute and longitude every time they start a transmission. I bet it's merely a [dumb] requirement idea brought up by ILEC companies in an effort to help slow VOIP deployment through regulation.
There are some good ways to have VOIP users to register their fixed-location numbers with VOIP services, perhaps some will be seen in this article's comment thread. The FCC (or FTC or homeland security) can pick one and help the 911 operators and VOIP (and ILEC and wireless and satellite and cable) providers implement it. After that, the VOIP vendors can change their software/firmware to allow customers to voluntarily register their locations using the new standard.
-ez
Ok, looking at my post after it's too late, I see more stuff that I didn't catch during Preview.
If you complain about my grammar, you're too late, because I already did; so you'd be a Redundant (-1) Flamebait (-1) Troll (-1).
-ez
Sounded kind of sexual to me, but then I'm a perv.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It's easy enough to dial 911. The key thing with 911 is to register your location with 911 so that they know where you are when you call 911.
Excuse me, but if you believe that including 911 emergancy functionality in VoIP is an unnessesary and even invasive step by the FCC, then I'm just going to have to call you a moron on the grounds that the 911 emergancy system saves hundreds of lives each year and is an essential part of this country's emergancy responce capabilities. VoIP shouldn't have been regulated to require 911 services??? The VoIP companies should have included it by default! That's like saying Batman shouldn't be made to use the Bat Signal cause it causes too much light pollution...or something... I'll think of a good analogy later but... oh no I'm being robbed! Quick 911! Wait, no I have VoIP and because some guy on Slashdot is now king of the world, the FCC didn't regulate and now I have no emergancy service. No! That was my mother's victorian vase! It has centinmental value!
Equip all homes that dont have landlines with a 911 button, whos sole function is 911 emergency service.
this comment was unfairly moderated down. I am reposting it and if I find it modded down again, I am forwarding it to the proper people at this website to have your mod privileges revoked.
We're talking about the difference between life and death here. 911 is a vital service, not only in the US, but almost everywhere on this earth. People need to have the confidence that when they dial the emergency number that they'll be connected to a service centre that can then either help them, or route the call to the particular service they ened.
The notion that it is ok for people to decide that they don't want 911 access is stupid. You could save $4! Wow! Imagine you're young, fit and healthy. Nothing bad's going to happen to you, right? so why need it? Suddenly, you get an awful pain in your lower right abdomen. Dial 911. Nice message telling you to ring the service centre to enable this option. Too fucking late.
I've been in an emergency (on my own). Let me tell you dialing 000 in Australia, knowing it would be picked up by an experienced ambulance operator, was without a doubt the happiest moment of my life. That quick response, the magnificent paramedics and a surgical team saved my life.
Over regulation? No. Simple common sense.
the 911 issue is way serious. for one thing, without the 911 surcharge (aka tax), you don't have money for the lines and equipment and operators at 911, or for the radio dispatch for the police/fire/ambulance.
for another, believe me, VoIP providers are seriously wrestling with the ramifications of what happens when Billy Bob Bubba III uses his VoIP phone from East Noplace's regional office to call 911, when that phone is registered to the South Useless head office? where should the ident for the number tell the cops to go, particularly if it is a ring-answer-hangup call.
I would like to think the fix is putting little GPS receivers in the phone sets.... except for one thing. anybody ever try to use GPS inside? doesn't work. you can't see the birds overhead to mark your position.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Why, in my day, we had to walk on bloody stumps, up hill, both ways, to find help. heh. 911. Kids.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
No, simply because you can't.
GPS signals are extremely low power and do not work indoors (unless you are near a window of which you can pick up 3+ sat signals). In fact tree leaves will block GPS signals, then there's the whole signal reflection issue in cities...
hows this for an idea, the user can turn it off, and when you dial 911 the cell phone automatically turns it on?
When I first saw the headline, I was worried that this would affect services like Pulver's end to end Free World Dialup VOIP service, but upon actually reading the article, this regulation is intended for those services that are converting your phone call to VOIP for trasmission and then convertinig it back.
If the service you are using is tied into the telephone network, then the provider should make 911 (and extended 911) service available.
If you are complaining about the cost of 911 service, then I guess that $0.25/month charge is pretty steep, but they'll let you use it anyway on my tab!
If iots about the service knowing where you're calling from, well this is one of the few times where you'll catch me thinking that's a bit of intrusion I might someday be thankful for.
Get off the cowboy/militia/anarchy bit for a second and use your head. This is a service that actually helps people, is reliable enough that when you find a working phone, it's there for you. I know of people who carry a non-subscribed cell phone for 911 service alone. Even though they cannot call their friends on thier phones, they can still use 911 to get emergency services if they need it.
It makes sense. It's cheap and reliable. Quit your whining, it's well worth it.
Read, L
In order to offer 911 service, a telephone system must (at least theoetically) offer a gauranteed degree of reliability. After all, what good is an ability to dial 911 if your computer isn't functioning, or there's a network outage, or the packets are being blocked or dorked with by some router on the net? There's big difference here between the internet (a huge, shared network), and a telco, where they own, operate, and control their own facility, the end user's phone jack, and everything in between. This level of control allows the telco to make this kind of guarantee, whereas I'd have a hard time believing that a VOIP provider, which controls only their own gateways/gatekeepers, can provide same level of service - there are simply too many variables involved.
Ayn Rand! Hahahahahahaha. Idiot.
"If we left all safety related decisions up to "the consumers" we'd be in a world of trouble. The majority isn't always right, and our system was built to acknowledge that."
Seatbelts, helmets, speed limits.
[Sits back and watches the fun begin]
The libertarian-conservative types and the conservatives (who are mostly capitalists) will view this as a bad thing but has anyone considered the fact that 911 might be important? There are good reason for having socialist ideals and government intervention. Emergency services are important. Sure, you might never use it but when you do, it is extremely important.
As far as the costs being passed on to consumers, that's fine. Consumers are the ones that benefit from it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Two words: Dead battery.
VoIP 911 service is badly needed, however there are some major issues that HAVE to be worked out.
Unlike traditional telephone services, VoIP services do not have to be geopraphicly routed. A given NPA/NXX combination provides NO reliable indication of the callers location. The methods used for cellular phones (triangulation, signal strength analysis, and GPS) aren't workable either because the phone may be operating where GPS signals are not available (GPS doesn't penetrate solid objects very well), and doesn't use a system of local radio uplinks to access the PSTN.
Even when the expected address is in some sort of database, VoIP devices can be highly portable, so special call handling is really needed. This means operators that are specially trained to drill the caller for address information -- and that can be VERY difficult when the person on the other end is panicing -- especially if its a very young or elderly caller that may not be particularly aware of their surroundings! Because IP addresses don't map conveniently to physical addresses, it may NOT be possible to dispatch accurately to such a highly mobile device in the event of abandoned 911 calls, at least not without timely and IMMEADIATE cooperation from internet service providers.
(Of course, this form of cooperation is being resisted by many ISPs on privacy grounds thanks to overzealous actions by such wonderful organizations as the RIAA and SCO. "Hello, Verizon" "This is the New York City E-911 center, we have a caller from IP address xx.xx.xx.xx". "Sorry, we can't give out any information without a court order". )
What kind of power backup do the cable company's local CMTS or head-end boxes have? I like the telephone company's ability to provide service even when power is out for days after hurricanes, ice storms, earthquake, whatever.
I am an American. I live in Europe and I must say that although some parts of not having the FCC are great, while others are not. Some regulation is good.
However, I think that this is an absurd requirement, unless it is applied for a company which uses only VoIP for their services, where it would be a safety requirement for the protection of their employees.
Otherwise, it is quite foolish.
I think most of the posters do not have a clue, it's not
about dialing 911 to reach Help, it for the help service (firemen, police, etc) to find you if you can't talk. Very much like the Cell phone system that allows you to track down the location of the 911 caller. To provide this a user of a WiFi VoIP handset could be tracked down to the StarBucks that he is making crank 911 call from.
RJ
Would I really trust Comcast, my high speed internet cable modem provider, to provide a reliable enough internet connection to gaurantee a 911 call? I can't even rely on them to provide uptime on a day to day basis. What happens when the network goes down? How would I contact Comcast customer service to place a 911 call for me when my network is constantly down? I can't wait for WiMax to catch on in local communities. Then I will be free from my dependence on Comcast for my broadband. They are the only game in town for me.
So what are they going to do to locate me and my laptop which is running VoIP accross my cell phone line? At the comapny I work for, we can bounce our conversations to any of our office or multicast them (we own our own lines) and we are looking at renting a satellite transponder to go transcontinental to our Japan offices. How in the heck is 911 service going to be implemented when there isn't a way in hell to tell where a call is really originating from? Even an IP trace doesn't work in many instances. Maybe this is an opportunity to finally force the national infrastructure to IPv6.
Sounds like it is time for the govt to start revamping the 911 system to deal with non-locality.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
VOIP has to compete in the real world. Nothing is "free." It's not fair to the local telcos to have to bill us for 911 or e911 services and the VIOP companies don't.
If they're going to sell themselves as a replacement for traditional telephone services, they'll have to provide the same services and if they need to tack on $0.25 so be it.
Long distance companies in my market are calling with their new all inclusive local/long distance services. They quote this great rate that seems to be cheaper than my phone bill. What they want me look at is my current phone bill's bottom line.
What they fail to point out is that their quoted rate doesn't include the fee they must pay the local telco for use of the copper. They also don't point out that taxes and 911 fee. Add that stuff in and their rate doesn't look so good.
What it did do of prompt a decent price from the same package of service from my local telco. Competition is good as long as there is a level playing field.
VOIP is going to be good. It may even be what local telco providers are forced by pricing to adopt as their standard package. But then some things are goign to have to change. 911 and e911 is one.
Someone else pointed out that cell phones don't have 911. But they do! More and more dialing 911 one the cell phone will result in being patched through to the 911 operator for the location of the cell phone.
So are VOIP providers going to go beyond mapping my account to a single 10 digit emerency number? Curious question eh?
What if I'm dialing from the UK? (assuming a VOIP provider with international presence).
The emergency services number there is 999, not 911.
Chip H.
Yes Big Brother wants to know where you are and of course we would all need back a up phone line with a local carrier in case our internet goes down when we phone 911.
One thing that most people fail to mention in the 911/VoIP discussion is that POTS providers are required by the FCC to provide 911 service, even if your service is disconnected.
What does this mean? It means that if you've dropped your POTS line for VoIP (like me), you can keep an "emergency" phone plugged into your POTS line for 911-only use. For most people, the 911-over-VoIP discussion is no more than a bunch of FUD. Thanks, FCC, for the extra regulation -- I've always said that those people were a bunch of fu[BEEEEEP] who don't know their heads from their as[BEEEEEP]. FCC, you can suck my co[BEEEEEP].
-Turkey
woah woah woah. slow down there. Why shouldn't voip have to provide access to 911 services? You can't expect people to rely on voip until you've installed the necessary infrastructure to support essential services.
In other words, when I have a heart attack, I better DAMN well be able to dial 911 via voip.
anyways, what do you think is going to cost voip more, installing 911 access now or waiting until later when someone needs to call 911 but can't and their family sues the balls off of whatever voip provider that person was using?
that is unless we're using fight club economics.
figure out the cost of the average settlement times the expected number of 911 calls and if that number is less than the cost of installing 911 services, they just don't do it.
More costs due to Geroge Bush's big "terrorism" propaganda ploy.
As a European its funny to see how American's totally believe the rubbish that they are all in imminent danger of a terrorist attack after having one incident almost 3 years ago.
The amount of deaths due to this incident were totally insignificant compared to say American gun-deaths that have occured since, yet while gun laws remain unchanged, every area of American has undergone change to take into account a threat which has so far actually affected 0.000018% of Americans.
So how exactly does the military use GPS in the jungle?
Along with 911 and VoIP regulation the Justice Department also has a good reason to worry. Depending on the provider, it's going to be tricky or impossible to tap a VoIP call. Did anyone see the recent story on Slate.com regarding wiretapping on Internet Phone calls? Check it out: http://slate.msn.com/id/2095777 It says a lot for our future with the competing views within our US government.
If the VOIP provider maps calls to phone network numbers, then it (and the phone company in question) should work to ensure that the service is accessible... If VOIP eventually replaces the phone network, then it will have to manage connecting to the 911 call centres (with the help of the agency running those centeres).
I agree that 911 service should be available to VOIP consumers, since it should be a legitimate replacement for other phone services... but I don't think they should shoulder the entire burden alone.
It finds a clearing where it gets enough open sky to acquire the sats. (heh - sounds like something Buffalo Bill would say)
When we were first instructed on the use of GPS in the army, one of the things they repeatedly pounded into our thick, kevlar covered skulls was overhead cover blocks the signal.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
VoIP isn't necessarily tied to any hardware-- it's just a delivery method. In cases where it is hardware, it's usually a box inside a phone closet. GPS doesn't work unless it can see the sky.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Why not map some bits of IPv6 to the latitude-longitude coordinates, optimized for land masses/ground utilization (so that an empty field doesn't get the 300 IP addresses a high-rise building using the same ground area would have; and on the seas, 1 IP address per square kilometer could be enough)???
IWAD (I Was A Dispatcher) and I feel that I need to clear up some ignorance in this discussion. First of all, although a 911 call does go through a special system, in the end it is routed back through a regular phone line, and these phone lines have numbers. It is possible to call these numbers. When I was working as a dispatcher officers, and employees would use it as a way to get a higher priority without calling 911. I can even call a specific station, like the fire dispatcher, if I want to.
Second, people are complaining because VOIP may send the address of the caller to the 911 line, but that may not be the actual location of the caller. As bad as this is, the exact same situation has existed for years with cell phones. Before 2000 when a dispatcher received a cell phone call, all he got was the address of the tower that was relaying the call. Then we started getting the billing adress of the cell phone owner. By this year, cell phone companies were supposed to provide triangulation so that the dispatcher would (hopefully) know the actual location of the phone, but I doubt that has been uniformally implemented.
Because of this, the first things dispatchers are trained to do is confirm the location. That way, if the person passes out, or is attacked, a unit can be sent to the correct location.
Last, many people are describing 911 service as a right, but the fact is that when 911 was originally implemented many people saw it as an invasion of privacy, and lobbied against it. The fact is that, as a dispatcher, I could do a reverse lookup on a number, even if it was unlisted or blocked. The potential for abuse is obvious, and it is illegal for a dispatcher to do such a lookup unless she has a reason to believe that someone's life is in danger. Logs are kept of all reverse lookups. Similar controls will have to be put on VOIP databases.
I think it's safe to assume that POTS service would be availalbe at both locations.
So it'd be pretty pointless for say, giving gps coordinates to a hardened underground bunker deep in the jungle canopy? Makes you wonder why they didn't give the transmitters a few hundred(thousand?) more watts of power...
"I think it's safe to assume that POTS service would be availalbe at both locations."
:)
... if you want it.
...)
In which case, requiring 911 service on VoIP seems like a restriction with little gain. Which was my point
On the other hand, it's getting ever harder to find payphones, and easier to find people (though I guess not many businesses)who have given up POTS altogether.
I think it's great for VoIP providers to think about 911 service, and come up with ways to provide it, but requiring it (unless that requirement is really carefully written, something it's hard to be optimistic about) ignores the ways in which VoIP is used now and will discourage its flow into as yet unanticipated uses.
Offering (for instance) GPS-linked 911 service so that if you are choking to death in the park where you were telecommuting from a 802.11 hotspot your physical location is always known to your VoIP provider sounds nice
Maybe you don't want to be physically tracked at all times, or maybe it would mean that open-source operating systems would not be provided with the client program which would allow a particular VoIP system to legally operate. Who knows?
Walkie-Talkies don't have built-in 911 service; but then, neither do (most) cars. It's not hard to imagine integrating 911 service into any communication or transportation device; requiring it would impose costs though that I don't want to see imposed (creativity, time to market, diversification of features, higher prices
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
If I'm 100m north of said bunker in a clearing, my GPS will give me enough info to know where the bunker is (MGRS* makes this easy). GPS is a just an aid to navigation and generally goes along with a map and compass. If the bunker is your own, you probably already know the Lat-Lon position of it because it's marked on your map; and if it's NOT yours and you want an air strike on it, well, you're not inside it so the point is moot. GPS (for the infantry at least) exists to tell you where you are and, by extension, where the things around you are. Even if it did work underground, why would you want your lat-lon position in a bunker?
Makes you wonder why they didn't give the transmitters a few hundred(thousand?) more watts of power...
1) they can't put up a sat with a large enough solar array to make any significant difference in Xmitted power (inverse square law - those sats are FAR AWAY), and
2) they have nothing to gain by doing so.
The GPS system works as intended already.
*Military Grid Reference System
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
...///...
Rather than needing all this expensive gear to connect VOIP to the POTS to get to the 911 centre...
Give emergency services a VOIP phone?
Give 911 a record, whatever router the call hits first, directs the call to the closest 911 phone to that router?
Sounds easy enough...