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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.
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
Vonage added this a while back, more info here and oddly enough, my bill went down after they implemented it.
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.
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?
Just think of the issues that would be raised after a major emergency that could not be reported "I tried to call 911 but I couldn't connect..." That's when things would really start to hit the fan.
They can see a situation like this coming and they're trying to nip it at the bud.
Vonage has a poor fill-in for 911 service already, the ability to map "911" to the local police department.
Sorry. That's not 911, and it's far away from e911. Phone companies is required to provide the true e911. That means when you hit 911, you get connected immediately to the right call center servicing your area that has the capability to dispatch police, fire, and medical resources and your location data is automatically sent to that center as well.
911 call centers cannot be reached by mapping to any 10-digit number. There is no 10-digit number for them, they are simply known as 911 on the network within the region they serve. Vonage's immitation 911 depends on mapping 911 to a 10-digit number, so it can't find the call center and has to hope the police can help them. If you call a police department to report a fire, you will lose when-seconds-count time being bounced around while things burn.
If Vonage wants to compete with the phone companies, they have to have the same regulatory burdens that the FCC slaps on phone companies. It's only fair. If it means Vonage has to limit portability and/or raise prices to
It just depends whether or not the PSTN-to-VoIP gateway is just that, or if it's a service run by the VoIP company. There are plenty of PSTN-to-VoIP gateways that allow you to break out onto different networks. I'm not saying it's pretty at the moment, but what I'm suggesting is that the gateway needn't be provided by the company that is providing the registrar services, and thus would be impossible to regulate if they were overseas.
> 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?