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Texas Attorney General Sues Vonage over 911
bigtallmofo writes "Vonage VoIP customers and readers of many media reports should be aware that Vonage's support for 911 service is less than ideal. Now the Attorney General of the State of Texas is suing Vonage for failing to make clear the limitations of their 911 service. The issue was brought to the AG's attention after a 17-year old Houston girl was unable to reach police after dialing 911 when both of her parents were shot by an intruder."
The real number to which your 911 call is forwarded is some sort of state secret. The 911 call centers don't want to be called except for when 911 is dialed to avoid pranks, mistakes, and confusion. If you dial 911 from Vonage they forward your call to the publicly listed police number for your area. If they could figure out what the call center for your area would be, they would foward the call there. But my understanding is the list is not available to them.
The 911 problems with VOIP are that like cell phones, you can take a VOIP phone with you. It is not tied to a location. Unlike cell phones, you can't pinpoint the location as being near a tower. You are just "on the internet" which is not nearly as helpful. VOIP does not have embedded GPS either.
Here is a list of things that I think need to happen. Lets sue until the do (I don't care who):
I'm not sure how well the GPS thing would work indoors. You might have to have the box say "I can't get a GPS signal, I won't work until I have one. Go plug me in near a window until I can see a satelite, then you can put me in the basement."
--
Rate Exchange Calculator and Currency Convertor
I can't see Vonage losing. There is no 100 percent guarantee that 911 will
work, even with POTS lines. Intruders can cut POTS lines. Texas should sue but
the outcome should shed light on 911's reliability and at least push VoIP
providers to move forward with real E911 services. see Vonage losing. There is no 100 percent guarantee that 911 will
work, even with POTS lines. Intruders can cut POTS lines. Texas should sue but
the outcome should shed light on 911's reliability and at least push VoIP
providers to move forward with real E911 services.
Just because you are able to connect to the 911 operator, and the police dispatcher does not mean that the cops will be able to arrive on the scene in time. Believe me, I know. Criminals choose the time of their attack, and the police have to suddenly respond, that is their job, but can be an impossible combination for them to be in two places at once.
why I don't even use even cordless phones in my home.
I will never give up that emergency landline even if it costs me more money in both installation and charges.
(I may be biased, we have needed it on two occasions in my life, both fire though)
liqbase
with unreliable connections at times to the 911 calling line, it was obvious that at one point Vonage would be getting sued.
I cannot tell what is what for this case, it must be allowed to mature and all the details let out.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
When configuring your Vonage account, you're forced to jump through a series of acknowledgement screen which plainly state, in very easy-to-understand text, that when you dial 911, your call will not go to the regular 911 switchboard but rather a separate emergency service, which will then notify the local police, fire, etc. You have to run through this enablement process for each number you're enabling. So while it's perhaps possible that dumbass people using Vonage won't bother to read up on the issue, it's plain that Vonage has gone out of their way to let their users know 911 won't behave in the normal fashion.
It was very clear to me that I needed to setup my 911 information based on my physical location when I got Vonage. It was the first thing I did. I feel bad for the people this happened to, but it doesn't matter if you painted the box red and put big letters on it that said SETUP YOUR 911 CALLING, some people would still be oblivious.
Even though there's no 100 percent guarantee that a POTS line will get to the 911 center, there is currently a 0 percent guarantee on a VoIP phone. Now, don't you think that might be a little bit of a problem?
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
Geesh. Ok, how about we face the fact that the MURDER is the problem here.
1. Your message implies "who to sue". How about sue no one?! How about the personal responsibility of knowing 911 works this way when you buy the device... I own Vonage, no secret to me that 911 worked different. Pretty clear when I installed the device. Of course, everyone who visit the house know this? No... but damn, we DID NOT go through this bullshit when Cell Phones were new.
2. Murder is bad, so everyone is going to look to blame all kinds of things. But this is stupid human behavior and what makes much of the USA suck is our lack of accepting personal responsiblity (the person doing the murder). And our TV/Media always plays a role in in, making it seem like our government's main job is to keep John Q Public from killing Jim Q Public.
3. Yha, GPS. Uh huh. Let's use technology to solve problems created by technology... instead of #1 and #2.
I feel sad for the girl... but I also accept that you can't eliminate evil from the world... and every time you try to 'contain it' you just end up push it somewhere else. There are some things worth making a stand over... but come on, just a case of personal responsibility.
It is the government's job to solve all my problems! (911) Blah.
RTFA, they aren't dead.
Sigh, almost every major local phone service provider is required to keep every hardline connected capable of dialing 911, even if normal service has been disconnected.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
I'm sorry, but if you're an aspiring telco player, integration into emergency services should be priority number one. If they can do it with cell towers, they can do it with VOIP and there's absolutely no excuse.
The simple fact is, we've all been trained to call 911 in the event of emergency..and sorry, but all phones should be able to reach it in one form or another. I don't care if you have to open a call center to forward the calls to the proper local authorities, you do it, and that's that.
This kind of feature should have been in place before vonage even went live and I hope that the state forces them to comply. Now.
This also effects the cordless phones to a lesser extent too. Should the power go out most cordless phones don't have battery backup on the base station so the phone still works.
Many people get rid of their normal phone when they buy a multi-handset cordless, even though there's (in the UK at least) a big sticker on the phone that tells you about requiring mains power for the thing to work and the risk.
I work for an ISP/Communications company in my area. I recently switched my number over to a beta voip test network we've been playing with. I seriously have no idea if 911 will work correctly. (Seeing as I'm geographically close to our switch, maybe it will).
So I'm a tad concerned about this.
On the other hand, I did have to dial 911 in the last year (or two?), *before* I had the VoIP service, while I had a traditional land line.
An electrical cable outside my house was about 60 years old and it decided it would short in the middle of the night. (Think this was last April or the year before). This was the main power to the house. I went out to investigate, and it was smoldering. I had no idea if the house was burning on the inside of the walls or not.
I run back inside and dial 911. Guess what? The girl didn't know my address. She fumbled for a few minutes and finally I gave it to her.
So if I know 911 had problems beforehand, why would I worry about my voip service? I've tried to make it completely clear to my family if something goes awry, we would need to use our cell phones...
FLR
911 should be turned on by default, but using an excuse that it routes through call centers is absurd. Local 911 departments have been routing calls for the last few years due to budget cuts. Thats a lame excuse.
;)
Also GPS doesnt work as well indoors, so people who said that, thats not really going to work. Right now, cellular companies use tringulation and RF timing to detect where you are, works pretty well. Cingular (Former ATT Wireless) has friend finder, where you can add your friends and family and see where they are. Or leave a phone in the your car, and find out all hours where the car is.
I've seen several comments in previous Slashdot stories that call for the landline phone network to be scrapped and replaced with a broadband service. VoIP phones are great, but there is an obvious disadvantage. How do you ring someone when your power goes off? Use a mobile phone (or cell phone for the Americans in the audience)? That would be unnecessary duplication of a service and would be unviable for people who can't afford or do not want a mobile. In the UK the telephone uses a different power source that is delivered through the phone socket, so it is simple to call your power company when someone cuts through a power cable and plunges your entire street into darkness.
While Vonage is great and all, they are not taxed by anyone, as of yet. If you look at your baby bell phone bill, you'll see a tax of a few bucks on there each month for Emergency 911 service.
I pay for my 911 service, and so does everyone who uses a landline or a cell phone. Vonage wants access to this system, but they don't want to pay for it.
That is why the baby bell's are refusing access to the PRIVATE 911 network which they have established. We take 911 for granted, but it is a service that is private, and it is a service that we pay for.
I am a user of Vonage.
And i often travel to Europe and use VoIP from there to make calls in the USA.
What is Vonage supposed to do if i dial 911 in Europe ? (In Europe, the emergency number is 112.)
Isn't one of the points of VOIP that you can take your number with you anywhere in cyberspace? Call from your house in the suburbs, your downtown office, or the Marriot three time zones away?
There's no reasonable way to require the service to map 911 services if they don't know where you are.
As for Vonage, there's a link on their home page for 911 Dialing. If you click on it, you see that it's an extra service and all the limitations are clearly laid out, including the need to update them with your location and the fact that it'll only call the current designated location.
Based on my limited research on the subject earlier, the issue SHOULD be why Vonage is denied access to the 911 network. It isn't as is they don't want to provide it.
Even when I've used up my cash card in my cell phone, I can still reach the emergency number, even if the phone company has cancelled my landline service, I can still reach the emergency number, likewise from public phone booths without being charged anything. That's what I believe, anyway. Never had to try it. This is something so important that it shouldn't be excluded or even possible to exclude as an option. Holy shit.
Does Texas produce anything besides asshats?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
"Unlike traditional phone technology, VoIP converts the sound of a voice into small packets of data -- about 50 packets for every second of conversation -- scatters them across the Internet, and then reassembles them into sound on the other end of a call."
No thanks. I'm just a country doctor. I'm not having my phone call molecules scattered across the galaxy, er, internet.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
Yes it is vonages fault .I have experience with 911 and voip.
I was going for an interview for a job in long island at suffolk county police deprtment. One of my jobs was to help keep the 911 comp system up.
Also The voip company should be responsible for sending 911 calls to the local 911 system . Wich is mostly located in local police departments.
Dont say they shouldnt have to vonage should be held liable.
CEll phone companies do it why cant vonage?
"Joyce John was upstairs at home after school one day when suddenly she heard gunshots and her parents screaming. Her mother, faced with two armed robbers, yelled for the 17-year-old to dial 911.... When she did, the teenager heard this message: "Stop. You must dial 911 from another telephone. 911 is not available from this telephone line. No emergency personnel will be dispatched."
... ok, ok, I cancel lots of phone services and get robbed a lot....
Talk about a denial of service. This is something outta Dilbert. Wtf? Which city, state, or whatever, government allowed this to happen? 911 works on anything -- canceled cell phone service, canceled home phone service
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Was this suit possibly spurred on by a major telco who feels threatened by VoIP service and wants people to think they can't dial 911 over a VoIP service provider? Hmmmmm...I wonder....
"Operator, can I have the number for nine-one-one?"
...to get this sorted out. To my mind emergency services are a clear requirement on any phone system: Company PBX's have always had the ability to dial out in an emergency. Even most cellphones still let you call the emergency services when blocked or out of credit.
It's kind of annoying that in general, we argue against lumping VOIP in with the kind of legislation that applies to trad voice: the kind of legislation that may restrict free calls, or features or privacy or all of the above, and yet the VOIP provider blows it by not even offering a sensible baseline service.
YEs vonage should be held liable.
.
.
cell phone companies do it. why cant they. They are responsible for there system
911 should be the most important thing that should work . Especially after that incedent.
I do have a little experience with 911 wich the system was located in my counties police headquarters
Its like saying you got our service but you wil ldie if you get shot or you wil loose your house because you signed up with us.
THey can do it they are just lazy and dont want to spend the money.
First they tell you several times that 911 will not work until you activate it. Secondly, you have to enter the address where the phone is being used (being Internet based you can plug it in any place that has a router and suitable ports forwarded).
They still need to let people know about the limitation, even if it isn't their fault.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
To get a GPS fix, the unit needs to have a view of the sky. It needs to be able to see a fairly large area of the sky too in order to always have a full 3D fix. With a small area you get a lot of 2D fixes or have no GPS at all.
VoIP is NOT tranditional phone service.. saying "well because I use it to talk to people.. I should have regular 911" is flawed..
That's like living on a big old country road WAY out there... and having trees fall down often.. well when one falls you have to get a tow truck in there or other large vehicle to move it.
Saying VoIP needs landline quality 911 is like saying you need/want a crain on your car so you can move those trees... after all someone's life might depend on you getting through.
Your car is not designed to move trees... likewise VoIP is *not* regular phone service, and as a result will be DIFFERENT.. (You don't see anyone sueing because they get 3 way calling for free.. do you? That's certainly not a standard for a regular phone line.).
If dialing 911 (cutting trees) is that important to you, then keep a regular land line, or cell phone (get a tow truck).... but don't expect one technology to work like another!
I keep an old $10 "gets its power from the telephone line" phone plugged into an outlet, just in case. I've used it several times to call the local power company to report an outage following severe storms. None of my other phones would work because they're dependent on that AC and the local cellphone nets had gone over capacity and bellyup.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I recently signed up for basic, cable ready TV only service from my local mom and pop cable shop. Because of this I see 4000% more cable TV, cable Internet and cable phone service commercials than ever. In fact, I've got CNN on and they've run one commercial since I've started typing this (1.2 minutes thus far).
In these commercials for Cable phone (VoIP) service they do what that cable company does best: lies about phone services (Internet and Phone, their DSL commercials should be investigated by the FTC!!). They say that once you get the total cable package you don't need a phone. Bad idea, because people don't understand 911 doesn't work for people who can't provide an address and so forth. I suspect that is a universal problem with VoIP.
Well, in Ohio (my state) you can still call 911 from a dead phone. If you don't pay your bill the phone company must let you dial 911. Thus, if you canceled service and got VoIP then you could still use 911. I suspect also that Texas doesn't have this.
This could be solved if they, VoIP services provided a direct connection to your 911 service. Route your "9-1-1" call to your local service and pass the info, in standard form, to your service. Anyone can do this, including wireless services provided they can track (triangulate?) a user.
Another option is to just create a national law that any landline phone wire must be able to dial 911. As long as that connection is made behind a demarcation point, it will be identified at the correct address. Weird addresses, and buildings are corrected usually at the 911 service center.
Get your Unix fortune now!
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
Now, I'm sure someone will point out the hole in my logic, but what if there was no phone in the house to begin with? You can't very well dial 911 without a phone can you? Should the Phone company then be sued for not providing a phone with which 911 can be called? Should the building codes be ammended to require a land-line in every dwelling?
Ok so what is my point? Just as it is an individual's responsibility to get in touch with the phone company to get (traditional) phone service hooked up, it is the individual's (The home owner, in this case) responsibility to set up their Vonage 911 feature. And, yes, Vonage does make it very clear that their 911 service is different from 'real' 911 (I have Vonage and I know and I'm not that smart). Now if Vonage out and out lied about how their 911 works, it would be a different story but they don't and they didn't - case closed.
Please everyone think about who's really responsible for screwing up your life (hint: look in a mirror).
I just listened to the sound clip of the call at:h p?id= 849
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagNews/release.p
I don't see how this lawsuit will have any feet to stand on... first the message CLEARLY states that 911 service is not available on that line.. and instructs you what to do (have a neighbor call or... HEAVEN FORBID!!! call the police number like you used to have to do 5 years ago)... it's not like Vonage is being negligent about this in any way...
Ok, how about we face the fact that the MURDER is the problem here.
What the hell are you talking about. This has nothing to do with murder, this would be no different if the persons house burned down. This has to do with a company offering a service and mis-representing a certain key feature. Just because YOU knew what the limitations of the service was doesn't mean that they necessarily made it clear to everyone who purchased the service. Who the hell is implying that 911 is going to "keep John Q Public from killing Jim Q Public"? The rest of your blathering is just that, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
...is because people's lives depend on it.
Vonage, welcome to the big kids' play ground. Providing a telecommunications service is a serious business. We take our service seriously and providing anything less than continuous dialtone and emergency access service is subpar.
Everyone likes to rail against the local phone companies, but there are a few things they do quite well. The first is continuity of service, i.e. the vaunted 99.999% uptime figure. The second is emergency services. Through 100 years of history they've learned through experience, regulation, and law suits what works best to meet the needs of the public.
CLECs like to complain about the hoops they have to jump through, particularly for 911, in order to meet the local utility board's requirements for becoming a competing telecom carrier. Well now people know why. Providing a reliable public service is difficult and expensive.
If Vonage wants to provide public service and offer a substitute to a typical wireline service, they need to be held accountable and made to go through all the same rigor that a CLEC does in order to connect to the PSTN (public switched telephone network). Methods exist in every part of the country to allow for CLECs to come in and offer service. These methods include 911 interoperability. Vonage hasn't done so because it isn't required of them yet, it costs money, it takes time, and it has to be done in every local calling area in which they want to offer service. This would require them to think like a phone company and only offer service in areas where the number of clients meets the break-even point for the cost of implementing the service in that area. And that alone would blow the "internet phone company" business model.
Personally, I'm glad that people are waking up to the realization that there is no valid wireline replacement (in terms of VoIP, not wireless) and that there are certain fixed costs and processes that have to be met in order to provide a public telecom service.
Bell companies connect emergency calls to the 911 PSAPs (public service answering points). CLECs do. ILECs do. Wireless companies do. VoIP providers should be required to do so too if they are going to offer a public telecom service as a wireline replacement.
If the state requires all phones to provide access to 911, then Vonage's disclaimers do not absolve them of potential liability.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/agency/contacts.shtml#e mail
greg.abbott@oag.state.tx.us
If every slashdotter e-mailed Greg and let him know what they think about this lawsuit, perhaps something will change.
If you didn't want to paint it red, get one of these and put it under one of these.
Call it the "9-1-1 Emergency Phone" for the kiddies...
Get your Unix fortune now!
If you'd read the article, you'd know that Vonage's 911 system does not provide the address of the phone used to make the call. Instead, it tells 911 that the emergency is in a Vonage server room, where the packets are converted to analog and dumped into the local 911 system.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You don't need active land-line service to call 911.
ALL land-lines are required by federal law to allow the phone to dial 911 even if service is not active on the line.
It is what one of the multitude of taxes we pay goes for.
The main reason for this is that any mains-powered phone won't work when the power goes out --- of course. However, phones that are powered from the telephone line will still work.
Non-guaranteed phones typically come with big warnings saying that they should not be used as your primary telephone because you may not be able to make emergency calls from them.
Why not simply do something like that?
Mr. Abbott,
I find your lawsuit against Vonage to be incredibly frivolous. First, Vonage is NOT traditional telephone service. It is VoIP. VoIP is NOT regulated, nor is it required to provide 911 service. Vonage has found a way to offer 911 service to consumer by redirecting them to their PSAP, however this can only be done AFTER the consumer has told Vonage where the unit will be used (as you can take it anywhere).
Second, saying you 'want 911' on your VoIP line, is like saying you want your car to be able to move large trees from the country road you live on. It's simply not the same thing. You need a tow truck, or other large vehicle to move the trees.... Likewise, VoIP is NOT traditional land line service, and as a result some things are different. I see no one complaining about FREE 3-way calling, FREE voice mail, and FREE caller-ID... these are certainly NOT services offered by traditional land-line companies.
Are you going to sue Ford because they failed to mention that the car you are purchasing does NOT have side air bags? Are you going to sue Ford because they didn't have a sticker on the car clearly indicating you could be injured more severely in car B then in car A because it didn't have side air bags?
Mr. Abbott, the time has come for American's to take responsibility for their actions. This is clearly a case of negligence (the persons involved failed to setup their 911 service), or ignorance (persons involved failed to read the NUMEROUS warnings that Vonage gives.. even the periodical e-mails if 911 service is not activated, and the BIG RED LETTERS at the top of the dashboard page if 911 is not activated).
Further, in signing up for service, these persons agreed to the Terms of Service, which clearly state that traditional 911 is not offered, and there are limitations to VoIP 911. Additionally, it MUST BE ACTIVATED!
I am asking you, Mr. Abbott, to stop this frivolous lawsuit and move on to more important things, like educating the people of Texas about VoIP, rather then trying to stifle its growth.
Sincerely,
Matt Hoppes
Further, almost every 911 dispatch center has a non-911 number through which they can be reached. Everywhere I've lived, this number can be found in the phone book on the same page as the other emergency numbers.
If that is the case, simply program it into speed dial. No matter, Vonage and other VoIP services must provide some sort of emergency services because in most states it's required.
I think they should collect taxes for 911 and then provide it... how hard is that? Does it require a federal law?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Here's the REAL emergency number...
912
Abbott is being paid by SBC to assassinate Vonage. It's that simple. Check Abbott's bank acct. No dbout it has grown much fatter...
eat shiat and bark at the moon
1) NO, Vonage does not need to be held to the same standard as ILECs/CLECs. As a consumer, I choose the service I want. If I don't want to pay for 911, I should not be forced to. (And yes, Vonage clearly warns customers of the 911 issues.)
2) Read the many posts in-thread about how Vonage DOES provide 911 service to the best of their ability at the moment. ILEC/CLEC are not exactly making it easy for them.
The real question is did the customer have the service turned on?
From vonage's website:
911 Dialing Is Not Automatically Set Up for Use. You Must Pre-Activate 911 Dialing. You May Decline 911 Dialing.
We STRONGLY urge you to activate 911 Dialing. Even if you don't plan to make 911 calls from your Vonage line, there may be others who do. You can't plan in advance for all situations. For example, a residential line could be used by babysitters, young children, in-laws, and others who may need to make 911 calls. If you decline 911 from Vonage, you or others will not be able to call 911 from your Vonage line. Don't play games with your safety. Register today
Of course that really doesn't matter. The fact is it didn't work and that's enough for someone to sue.
It would be interesting to know if they had the service turned on or not. Of course it should be on by default...
I live in Houston, and I saw the story about VoIP on the local NBC affiliate. They talked about the shortcomings of VoIP, but seemed to show VoIP offerings other than Vonage, companies I had never even heard of. I'm not entirely sure that these companies offer ANY 911 service.
I don't know why the AG is going after just Vonage. To me, it sounds a little more politically motivated (read as: SBC is based in Texas) against the biggest VoIP provider rather than trying to help a girl who used an unnamed VoIP provider.
However, that said, and I don't know if Vonage does this, but Vonage needs to ensure that it's customers have properly setup their 911 service by requiring some sort of verification system prior to using their phone for regular calls. IMHO.
I personally think this is a backdoor ploy by the status quo phone industry to hurt Vonage.
Let's face it, cell phones don't always have 911 access either, but NO one complains about that. That's because the status quo phone industry makes a fortune on cell phones.
Once the status quo phone industry kills off the little guys like Vonage and takes over VOIP, we won't be hearing about the so called 911 problem anymore.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
You're sorry that people (you included) CAN read the lower features and the extra services, but CAN'T read the prominent and urgently-word warnings about setting up the (freely available) 911 service?
I'm sorry, your apology is not accepted.
Even if she didn't know your address, she did pick up. With Vonage, if you haven't set it up you get an error message when you dial 911.
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For a home based IP phone, why not have the phone free the land line that is already going to be there, switch over to a radio frequency that communicates with a reciever connected to a spare land line jack and dial 911 like a regular cordless phone. After all, 911 service is legally required to work on every land line even if you are not paying for service.
If this had been the case in the girls situation, her parents may not have blead to death.
But you have to enable it, and tell them your location.
Lets face it, there is *NO* way that 'your VoIP phone service will work anywhere you plug it into a broadband Internet connection (including locations other than your home)' and/or 'you are not restricted to the local monopoly-phone carrier for your phone service, or even required to use their existing wiring plant' can ever be compatible with 'the phone service provider always automatically knows your location'. Anyone desiring services with the former featurs, *should* have the sense (or if they don't, it should be in big bold letters when they sign up) to realize that.
For more info (from Vonage):
http://vonage.com/features.php?feature=911
Funny, most of the people I've met from Michigan and Georgia have been asshats too. Coloradans about 60%, and you, of course, are the hat trick.
If Vontage and the 911 people worked together, surely they could link some location-specific information (i.e. an address) into the VOIP software? It would be set up when the user first sets their phone/software up.
Then their calls could be routed to the correct service centre automatically?
Wouldn't guess the cost would be huge either.
For existing users there should also be a central US wide support centre that takes non-locational calls, and relies on people giving their location to an operator (or dialling their ZIP code in?).
For cell phones it should be simple to locate someone to their nearest cell, which would give their location to a few hundred feet - plenty close enough for the emergency services to find them.
Can anyone substantiate this with a link to some FCC page? I've heard this, too, and am not sure its true. Thanks
They hound you about it when you sign up (I signed up 1.5 years ago). Then they send you an email every once in a while and every time you sign in to the web interface it reminds you that "You do not have 911 dialing activated, please follow these steps to activate it..."
Whats next are people going to start suing because a restraunt sold them HOT coffee...
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even phones with no service still have 911 available. For the time being, VoIP users could keep a regular phone plugged in for emergency purposes.
first the message CLEARLY states that 911 service is not available on that line
Oh yeah, and that's really helpful WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE AN EMERGENCY!
What I've recommended here is not to use 911 at all. Simply program a speed dial for the 911 business line, their 7 or 10 digit number. That way you'll get in and you get the right PSAP every time.
VOIP phone providers don't transfer calls over a 911 trunk anyway, they are forwarded to the PSAP over a regular telephone line. All that a VOIP phone customer needs to do is obtain that number and program it into their "phone".
I have had several VOIP phone providers call me about this so I know their working to provide 911 service for their customers. That's awfully damn nice of them, but it's not their responsibility.
Your personal safety is your personal responsibility. You should know if you have working 911 service and, if not, make it happen. If you lose a life because you dialed 911 and it didn't work it is no different than if your smoke detector didn't alert you to a fire because it didn't work. You have to test these things and know that they work.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Yes, you can have a phone that only dials 911, but it is not free, you have to pay for it. I can only speak for Bell South, but that's they way that they describe it.
No, there is no FCC regulation requiring the phone companies to have a *free* 911 only phone. There are plenty of people even here in the USA that have *NO* phone service (including cell phones).
US citizens expect to be able to dial 911 and get a response. That it the purpose of the system. Then you have this new corporation (Vonage) that wants to have their cake and eat it too. Kudos to the TX atty gen.
"Uh sorry, you've got the wrong number, this is 9-1...2..."
Buy a Digium POTS interface and plug all your carp into the Asterisk box.
Make sure to configure the damn thing to route 911 traffic to a local POTS line and not Vonage et al.
Rookies!
I just finished getting my Vonage fully activated. When you log into your account, and click on the features page to configure your voice mail, call forwarding etc., the 911 configuration box is at the top in red and it covers the full width of the page. The rest of the options are found below that in a rather dark shade of gray, that are only 1/2 the width of the page. Do they need to use the "blink" tag? (I know, it has been deprecated) I suppose the only option for Vonage is to make people enable 911 before their service becomes functional.
Suppose I'm interested in signing up for Vonage. I go to vonage.com, click on "Basic 500 plan." On the main page, it says, "Does Vonage offer a 911 Dialing emergency type of dialing service? Yes. Click here to learn more. " Clicking on the link takes me to a page where the first sentence reads, "Vonage offers 911 Dialing to all customers. When you dial 911, your call is routed from the Vonage network to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for your area." Just below it, in bright yellow-orange letters, a message clearly states, "You Must Tell Us the Physical Location of Your Vonage Line for 911 Dialing to Function."
When consumers purchase the plan over the phone, call center salespeople also fail to disclose this important information...
Okay, so 2 weeks later, I sign up for Vonage by phone. My phone rep tells me about 911. Of course, YMMV, but the burden of proof is going to be unfortunately on Vonage via policies to its employees.
Even after signing up, there are limitations to the service that Vonage customers may never know about unless they read the fine print buried on the company's Web site.
After signing up, I log in, and get a dashboard. Granted, nothing about 911 shows on the dashboard. When I click on "Features," however, which is where you go to set up call forwarding, voicemail, network outage fallback number (strangely called Network Availability Number), Right There In A Bold Red Box, It Says "911 Dialing is NOT automatic. You must activate 911 Dialing for each number on your account."
This is hardly "buried in the fine print."
See above.
For example, customers who dial 9-1-1 through Vonage's "911 dialing" service are routed through administrative lines at 9-1-1 call centers, not directly to call-station operators who dispatch emergency vehicles. Calls outside regular business hours may not be answered. If emergency personnel do get the call, they may not be able to identify the caller's phone number and will not have information about the caller's address.
No personal experience on this one, but given the other falsehoods in the article, I find it highly suspicious. Vonage collects your address and binds it to your telephone number. When you call them, they know the registered address of the phone. Vonage claims to use that information to connect to the proper call center. In the age of call forwarding, I would hope this information is auto-routed to the call center... but then again, how many times have I keyed my account number into an automaton only to have the human ask for it all over again.
In summary, Vonage is great, it's 911 is what it is, but they certainly warn you about it, and this lawsuit is baseless.
The OP could have expounded a bit, but I ask you all to reconsider as this was also my first, and yes a tad callous, thought.
Her parents were shot by an intruder. Daughter was obviously either hiding or protected well enough that she didn't get shot. The article states that she is 17 not 7 so the expectation is that she would not only know her address but also be able to provide location information, even in a brief space of time.
911 is to dispatch as soon as possible in an ermegency. That does not guarantee that any further mayhem may not occur until the calvary arrives. Dialing 911 is only the beginning of help. It's not a direct guarantee that the the minute you call, you're safe. It just means that someone else now knows that something bad has happened and that possibly the danger isn't over.
If you dial "0" on a Vonage phone do you get a local operator? Does someone even think about any of this in a time of emergency when their life is in danger? Probably not. Maybe not especially a 17 year old kid who's parents have been shot.
However, I work in telecom. People call and cancel their long distance because they're switching all their land line based svc to switch to VoIP. And I ask them if they are aware that they may not be able to reach 911. And the response 9 times out of 10 is that the savings is worth the risk. Of course no one will think that after an emergency. I wonder if her parents took the risk, initialed the little box, checked the appropriate little form box and if so, the risk factor assumed is their own, not Vonage's.
This also speaks to the litigous depths we will sink too. I'm so very tired of people, especially over-eager attorneys, thinking of lawsuits first instead of, "this was awful, let's work on preventing it in the future". Once upon a time we realized the world was not a perfect place. Now when we get pissed off or hurt or even just on a soapbox, we sue.
I hope Vonage doesn't have to spend more time and money focusing on a lawsuit than they could on improving the service and 911 support. The original post poses the fact that will a lawsuit change what happened? The answer is no. Will Vonage improve their service, lawsuit or no? Of course. Time and technology will take care of that.
If they can do it with cell towers, they can do it with VOIP and there's absolutely no excuse.
Uh, HELLO? The whole point is that VoIP customers can be ANYWHERE. Last I checked, people didn't pick up their cell towers and move them.
But wait - if you TELL Vonage where your modem is, then you have 911!
Cell Phone company knows where cell tower is, they route you to 911. Vonage knows where you are, they route you to 911.
So what's the issue here again?
Oh, right, THE END USER IS STUPID.
paintball
911 is PRETTY GODDAMN IMPORTANT. Its taught to kids in Kindergarten. Everyone knows it. Its a universal number that connects you to the police. You can't say "Well, if people are too dumb to read the documentation, they shouldn't be upset."
Supporting 911 also includes having emergency services know your address, know your PHONE NUMBER, and other information. Its not just a macro that connects you to a PRIVATE company that might not even be open. A 5 year old who doesn't know what his address is can call 911 and have help arrive.
But according to some posters here, everyone should have read this fine print, buried in the terms of service:
2.1 Non-Availability of Traditional 911 or E911 Dialing Service
You acknowledge and understand that the Service does NOT support traditional 911 or E911 access to emergency services. Vonage does offer a limited 911-type service available only on Vonage Devices as described herein, but you acknowledge and understand that 911-type dialing is NOT automatic, that you must separately take affirmative steps, as described in this Agreement and on Vonage's website, to activate such 911-type dialing capabilities and that such 911-type dialing is different in a number of important ways (some, but not necessarily all, of which are described in this Agreement) from traditional 911 service. Vonage 911 dialing cannot be used in conjunction with a Vonage Soft Phone application and is only available on Vonage-certified Devices or Equipment. You agree to inform any household residents, guests and other third persons who may be present at the physical location where you utilize the Service of the non-availability of traditional 911 or E911 dialing from your Vonage Service and Device(s). If you activate Vonage 911-type dialing service, you agree to inform any household residents, guests and other third persons who may be present at the physical location where you utilize the Service as to the important differences and limitations of Vonage 911 dialing service as compared with traditional 911 or E911 dialing that are set forth in this Agreement.
2.2 Description of 911-Type Dialing Capabilities - Activation Required
Vonage does offer a 911-type dialing service in the U.S. (but may not offer such service in Canada) that is different in a number of important ways from traditional 911 service. You acknowledge and understand that 911-type dialing is NOT automatic. You must successfully activate the 911 dialing feature by following the instructions from the "Dial 911" link on your dashboard. You acknowledge and understand that you cannot dial 911 from this line unless and until you have received a confirming email. Once you have received a confirming email that 911 dialing has been successfully activated, you may dial 911 as needed. When you dial 911, your call is routed from the Vonage network to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or local emergency service personnel designated for the address that you listed at the time of activation. You acknowledge and understand that when you dial 911 from your Vonage equipment it is intended that you will be routed to the general telephone number for the PSAP or local emergency service provider (which may not be answered outside business hours), and may not be routed to the 911 dispatcher(s) who are specifically designated to receive incoming 911 calls using traditional 911 dialing. Vonage relies on third parties for the forwarding of information underlying such routing, and accordingly Vonage and its third party provider(s) disclaim any and all liability or responsibility in the event such information or routing is incorrect. As described herein, this 911-type dialing currently is NOT the same as traditional 911 or E911 dialing, and at this time, does not necessarily include all of the capabilities of traditional 911 dialing. Neither Vonage nor its officers or employees may be held liable for any claim, damage, or loss, and you hereby waive any and all such claims or causes of action, arising from or relati
Dallas doesn't have a police department and a 911 line, when I dialed the 10-digit number to file a noise complaint I heard "911" and I quickly apologized and asked for the number of the police department. They don't have one, just 911, which is used for everything.
I was at the recent VON conference in San Jose and there are a lot of emerging businesses out there to provide nothing but 911 and E911 services, so this problem is on the right way to get fixed. I'd still prefer to be able to access 911 services via SIP/IAX instead of VoIP->PSTN->911. I prefer the more direct route.
I was looking into switching to Vonage completely about a month ago, when I noticed the small print which says 911 calling is not available in Canada AT ALL! It does say that 911 is available in America though, so I'm not sure what the problem is there. But until they get 911 working in Canada there is no way I'm switching.
Meh.
When I go to www.showmyip.com it shows me both the city and state of my ISP and has when I used to live in a smaller town with access from Charter Cable, as well. I'm sure it doesn't work everywhere, and I'm not entirely sure how they do it, but I think Vonage could look at that and if that information changes flag some sort of warning as soon as you pick up the phone in a new location to at least remind you to update where your E911 service should route to. Either that or there could be an option that will flag a prompt:
"You may need to update your 911 service. We notice your Internet address has changed. This could happen normally over a course of time, or this could me you've changed your location. If you have not changed your location please press 1 to continue to a dial tone. Otherwise, please press 2 to update your 911 calling information."
The should then tell you how to log into Vonage.com to change your E911 routing information. They don't do this or anything at all like this right now (they just hope you remember on your own) but I think this would be a good way to do it. Chances are as soon as you move your phone to a new location you'll pick it up as soon as you plug in to check and see if you have a dial tone. Since your IP has almost definately changed, you'll get the prompt long BEFORE you ever try to call 911.
Heh. You'd be surprised. But I won't be explaining routing protocols to you in this post.
... and so on. As a final straw, these are all UNROUTEABLE IP addresses, but a VOIP adapter would still be able to hook up to Vonage via our network via NAT address at the internet gateway.
DNS names (slashdot.org or www.yahoo.com) are mapped to IP addresses. IP addresses can be anywhere on the planet - and most addresses are not mapped to a physical address.
It's true that some DNS name registrations include an OPTIONAL location field, expressed as lat-long. But not many people fill in this optional field.
Adressing your other idea, the DHCP servers are mapped to physical addresses. Dude. Stop talking about things you don't understand. Simple example: currently I run a large corporate network. The DHCP servers are in Issaquah, Washington (and not location mapped in DNS). DHCP clients all over the world receive their IP addresses from these DHCP servers. So the DHCP server in Issaquah doles out IP addresses to systems in Kansas, London (England!), Chicago
Another example: a local ISP which serves the greater Puget Sound area. ISP is in some Seattle location; clients range from Everett to Tacoma to Ellensburg. So 911 should call the Seattle ISP and ask for the street address of IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx?
Gimme a break. And stop talking about things you don't know.
I could be wrong but I believe the phone companies are required to keep 911 available when existing phone service is disonnected. They aren't required to run a new line to anyone's house but once a line is established they have to maintain 911 access.
I don't know if that's federal or state or what.
Here we go again. Those Texas liberals are foisting unbearable regulations on those poor corporations whose customers voluntarily set up a service they didn't bother to understand and got burned in the process. Clearly what is needed is less regulation, not more hassle from the state. As more and more people are assaulted and cannot dial 911, people will learn over time that they need to set up emergency service through their telecom providers. This is how the market works, folks.
Don't come crying to me when your eight year old daughter is being raped by space slugs and can't call the police cause you didn't bother to read all the fine print.
Tongue firmly planted in cheek,
-l
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As a policy maker, you want to best serve your constituents. One of the largest employers in your state faces increased competition created by new technology such as VoIP or WiFi. Sure it may not be good for consumers, but you can save thousands of jobs and have another door to knock on during your next campaign. This is not an engineering problem folks, it is a political problem.
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
My situation is even worse.
My phone service is with Vonage but I was able to get it only because of a fluke.
My province (PEI) shares an area code with a neighbouring province (Nova Scotia), they are able to get VoIP but really my province isn't supposed to (even though we share the same area code?!?). I even e-mailed Vonage to ask them and they wrote back saying I couldn't get it since my city wasn't in NS.
Before all that I saw a Vonage kit at the local Staples store thinking it was available here.
Anyway I have a "local" number which is for a city 400km away. Even if Vonage called the local police they would be 400km away in a different province and city.
The phone service is cheaper than my local providers that's why I have it, just for fun really. Also, I have a cell phone too so I'm not in danger.
This is why I still have a landline as my primary phone. Yes, it is expensive. Yes, it's annoying to pay that monthly bill.
I have a 2 year old daughter. I have never needed to call 911 but I DEFINATELY need to know it is accessible at a moments notice and that 911 can find me without having to worry about it. Also, when my daughter gets a little older I need to know she can dial 911 and get help, even if she doesn't know our address.
We have a landline and two cellphones. We contemplated dropping the landline and just going with the cells because it's so much cheaper -- 911 service is the primary reason we did not do so. Even cell 911 is limited and they cannot always figure out where you are located -- and what happens if you let the battery run down???
Until alternative methods of contacting emergency personnel are proven to be effective, I will stick with my landline. It's worth the extra cost.
Also, having the landline means we can give people we really don't care about (ie the plumber) our landline number and we aren't spreading our cell number around to everyone in the world.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
Instruments
Lash out, little bloostater! Lash out!
They're so CUTE when they're acting like immature little nothings. :)
Get a phone and set a speed dial of 911 (to dial your local emergency services) or call up your service provider and ask about the services before you signup.
In this case i think the family is entirely wrong as the last thing i would want my daughter to do is put herself in harms way by dialing 911 in the middle of an armed robbery.
Teach your kids to go to your neighboors house and seek an adult before attempting to teach them to take matters into there own hands.
Even in the case of fire and such, don't tell your kids to stay on the phone. get out to SAFETY FIRST.
PS, all cell phones of the past few years are enabled for 911 even if you don't pay for service. Keep an old phone around for emergencies if you have to.
Set up a rotary phone (or a clearly marked touchtone, preferably one that looks nothing like the ones hooked to Vonage -- you should be able to tell it instantly from your VoIP phones, even when you are under heavy stress. Red, maybe?) on your old landline if you switch to Vonage -- the phone company is required to provide you with 911 even if you don't have phone service on the line.
Or just keep your local phone service, and every phone in the house is really 911 capable -- that's what I do, and it works well with six phones. If you only have one phone hooked up for 911, it may be harder to get to a telephone when you're home alone having a heart attack and your cell phone is on the charger if you have one. I for one don't want to die because I wanted to save a few bucks and cut most or all of my house's phones off from 9-1-1, of all things. It'd be a humiliating way to go out, not having a working telephone.
Or alternatively, make sure that someone in your house has a working cell phone at all times; 911 is better than with Vonage, I believe.
Re:Bah You must be stupid to miss the 911 setup
this is TEXAS we're talking about. 'nuff said.
and yes, i agree. since the very beginning, vonage has been very up front about the 911 issue.
i do not have 911 services on mine, as i take the box on trips frequently, even work ocassionally. i have a cell phone too. newer cell phones (in the us, anyway. dunno about elsewhere) are required to have gps-enabled 911 service. heck, this little crap town i live in didnt even have 911 for land line phones until cell phone providers were required to have it.
I want the one with the face and blinking nose that the Powerpuff Girls have.
It seems like this problem is just a variation on more common problem - whre do you go on the internet in case of emergency?
Imagine if you have a 911 situation and you only have access to the Net - no phones. Where do you email? Which site do you go to?
I think it is about time someone puts together standards-based gateway to emergency services. Google are you listening?
Well not now as in today, we don't want to slashdot 911. However if you have VOIP service and 911 should be enabled, call 911, tell the operator it is a test (sometimes they will put you on hold until they are not busy, just wait) then ask the operator to verify that they have your correct address.
It is legal to call 911 for purposes of testing, but you should only do so when you need to test something. A voip phone is good reason to test 911.
It is easy to do. Everyone should do it once in their life just so they have an idea what will happen when 911 answers. Just remember that you are low priority, don't get mad when they leave you suddenly. If there is an emergency you want them to take care of that first.
I guess now that things like VOIP are coming into being, it makes sense for ISPs to maintain location records in DNS. I know it seems odd, but why introduce GPS and other location tracking systems, when there all ready is a proposed and implemented system today. No, it wouldn't be perfect, but neither is using cell tower locations. At least it would give the process a head start in determining what resources to tap into.
--WooooHoooo--
BonVoyonage!
If you've installed Vonage recently -- as I have -- you'll know Vonage now bugs you repeatedly to set up 911 service. I don't know if this was a byproduct of these legal issues, but if you subscribe now you certainly are warned about setting up 911.
I never thought I would say this but, There needs to be some sort of regulation that guarantees a VoIP provider can interconnect with a RBOC 911 databse. The RBOC could chrage the VoIP provider _reasonable_ connect fees and a charge "per database dip" for every 911 call. This is technology that is used today. It's not rocket science. Problem for VoIP is, they might not be able to offer unlimited calling for the se low rates.
You get what you're _willing_ to pay for. I know I would pay extra for guaranteed 911 functionality.
You are missing the point.
Sure, the kid may not have known at the time... but that's why the parents should have thought of it beforehand. They signed up for vonage, if they didn't setup 911 location, it's THEIR OWN DAMNED FAULT. Not the kids, not Vonage's.
The only way Vonage could possibly be at fault would be if the parents had setup 911 through Vonage and it didn't work.
"Simple fact of the matter is, it's pretty damn easy to tell where packets are coming from, especially a system like this. In the event of an emergency they should have some kind of failsafe that tells the operators where the packets were originating from. It would honestly not be that hard to do between Vonnage and the users. "
This is just absurd. It's relatively easy to trace packets back to the ISP, but there's no way to know the physical location from which the customer is accessing their account. Why do you think that the RIAA and MPAA are always having to get subpoenas to force ISPs to give up the identity of file sharers, even though they know the IP address?
" VOIP should be able to do this. Normal telcos are required to have 911 connectivity and they don't ask the user (in the case of cell phones) where the hell they are when they call in, it just gets routed properly. "
That's because the phone company already knows the physical location that corresponds to the phone line or cell tower that you're using. Since, you know, they had to physically go there to install it...
You must tell everyone in your house that you don't have Traditional 911:
And it may not work during non-business hours since they aren't contacting the PSAP in the same way your telco did:
There are ways around these issues to some extent (e.g. maintain a PSTN connection, get a cellphone with E911, etc.) but it's certainly something you should be aware of and understand before signing up with a VoIP provider.There's some more information on their carefully named Vonage Lets You Dial 911 page.
-- null
The tragedy is that some idiot had a gun and very bad intentions. Not that soome technical detail was overlooked by an dead consumer.
Reduce the availabilty of guns and the gun-related death go down. Reduce the notion that you can solve any problem with a gun and death rate goes down even more. Reduce the number of people that are in a situation where crime pays and again, crime goes down.
Sueing a phone company will not get her parents unshot. Maybe Vonage should not hire lawyers to defend against this nonsense, but hire the original murderer to shoot the girl and her lawyers too. Now that will set a precendent for ligitious bastard lawyers.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
The US Supreme Court recently sided with cities that want to be able to disallow new cell towers.
From the LA Times:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it easier for cities to say "no" to new cell-phone towers in their neighborhoods.
In a 9-0 ruling, the justices said the federal law that was designed to encourage the growth of the telecommunications industry does not allow cities to be sued for damages for refusing to permit a cell-phone tower.
The court's decision will take some pressure off local governments to approve new tower permits, although it does not mean they can refuse all of them.
The ruling was one of three Tuesday in which the court overturned decisions of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
I have Vonage. This pisses me off. Luckily I have a cellphone that has better 911 support (though if I'm stuck in a sinking boat in the East River I'm screwed) and no small children so I can live with it, but it's something that needs fixing.
I know Vonage and the rest are being frozen out of the 911 system to some degree by the non-VoIP incumbents, but they need to make a bigger stink all the time and push much harder for equal access to 911. TOS is not enough.
Granted, they're a private company and all, but a few more horror stories met by corporate intransigence and waffling will kill their business. It's in their interest to fight for 911 access much more vigorously and publicly. They should have PSAs calling for 911 access running on all the sunday shows and be screaming about it whenever their corporate officers are being interviewed. This won't happen until one or more customers are dead because of the lack of full 911 support.
Nothing ever happens unless people die. Road signs, product safety, etc. Folks push it until people die.
If they aren't required to provide it then I want to know what that universal service tax I paid on every phone line I ever had in the US(cell or land) was for.
>>Geesh. Ok, how about we face the fact that the MURDER is the problem here.
There is no mention of the parents dying in the article. I think they were shot but survived.
You can dial 911 from Sprint cell phones, but you usually get a recording that says "all operators are busy". If you wait long enough, you get some operator service somewhere, but they're oriented towards highway emergencies.
So what happens when P2P services like Skype take over and we don't even need the current POTS infrastsructure? When I get my phone service from a company based in Luxembourg, the AG in Texas isn't going to be able to sue to get his way.
BTW, Skype with 29 million users and 1 million SkypOut users does not offer any sort of 911 service.
http://www.skype.com/help/faq/skypeout.html
Can I call an emergency number (e.g. 211, 999, 911)? The current version of Skype software does not support calls to any emergency numbers nor emergency services (e.g. 211, 911, 999 etc). To perform calls of this type please make sure to use a landline telephone or a cellular/mobile phone.
ROFL. 911 doesn't work here. Not in the UK. Nor in Finland. There the number to dial is 112 (even with locked keypad etc).
;).
Over where I am, you're most likely screwed anyway if the police aren't nearby already. It's unlikely for the police to arrive on time to be useful for anything other than filling out police reports and doing the various redtape stuff. If the cops aren't already around the area, you might as well forget it.
Fortunately the odds of getting murdered where I live are about half that of the USA (and the odds of getting assaulted are way way lower).
See: http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/Crime
And given that the USA probably has MUCH better emergency/trauma medical care, the odds of "_attempted_ murder" occurring are by deduction be a lot higher in the USA.
If someone tries to murder you and the hospital brings you back from the dead, it's still just classified as attempted murder. So if the hospitals get better the murder rates improve.
I think the US should _concentrate_ on lowering their murder and _attempted_ murder rates. Sure 911 service is important, but the USA should get its priorities right.
0.04 murders per 1000 people. That's about the same as Uruguay. USA = 7.70 assaults per 1000 people. Uruguay = 1.34 per 1000 people.
Woohoo. Something is wrong, and your AG spends time suing VoIP providers for not providing a 911 that automatically works for stupid people.
Sure looks like the US hospitals are doing a decent job though
BTW either the UK hospitals are doing a FAR better job, or something else makes you 4 times more likely to be killed in the USA than in the UK. (assault rates are about the same, but murder rates are lower in the UK).
Alternative interpretation - being prodded with a little finger (or stuff like that) counts as being assaulted in the US and the UK, whereas the police in Uruguay will ignore or scold you if you try to report that as assault.
The service rep that explained that if I take the phone with me somewhere I can simply call and have the 911 access changed to that location.
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?
"So far, the company has only been successful in providing enhanced 911 service in Rhode Island because of hurdles it has run into with getting access to 911 through traditional phone companies."
Big shock that is - running into hurdles when dealing with traditional telcos.
I have Vonage. I had to read about 3 pages of disclaimers and warnings regarding 911, and how their 911 wasn't real 911 and they were sorry they couldn't make it be real 911 but they were doing their best and I had to acknowledge that here, here, and here.
Point is, there was tons of disclosure. Pages and pages of it. More disclosure won't help anything.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
I recently signed up for ATT VoIP and love the service. Comes with tons of features (most go unused) with unlimited long distance for 30 bucks a month. My only fear now is that SBC will aquire ATT and screw everything up.
--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?
I can just hear all the 9-1-1 operators bitching later today. WTF is slashdot, and why is everyone from there calling to "test" their service?
Vonage 911 works for me. I've had Vonage for about a year and a half now, in fact I waited to sign up until they had some kind of 911 support.
When I did, I read carefully the documentation about the 911 service. I moved about 6 months ago, and before I had my broadband and vonage up and running I used the website to update my 911 info so that it would have the correct address before the vonage box ever got plugged in.
After about 3 months there, our then 10 month old had his first accident with stairs. (It was scary, but he was fine) My wife called 911 with our Vonage line, and had no problems whatsoever. Rescue squad and police were on the scene very quickly.
Wait a second, there was a shooting in Texas and the homeowner didn't fight back with a gun!? I thought everybody in Texas had guns! Sounds like some sort of conspiracy to me.
what sig?
One of these. Should be roomy enough inside to add the guts of a small phone with speed dial. Program 911 into speed dial, work the button so that it activates it.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
One thing that I always argue about when talking VOIP is that IT MUST WORK. I have had a hell of a time convincing our senior administration about the fact that going to voip in our enterprise environment means extending the "5 9s" right to our network racks, that means big ass UPS units.. etc etc.
Bah, ITs great tech and all, but unless you can have end to end QOS right to vonages network, you need a landline backup.
A PSAP is a public safety (not service) answering point. Sorry for the mistake.
That said, they are allowed to do things like using one wire of a fence as a conductor, etc. It doesn't have to be a good line.... :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
That's not such a good idea. The numbers will eventually leak out and then those call centres will get overwhelmed with prank calls via gateways overseas or other routes where the caller ID is stripped off and the caller cannot easily be traced back.
If you do give VOIP providers access to those call centres, then you do it by setting up a direct link between the VOIP provider's switches and the call centre. This could be done through PSTN circuits or by setting up a VPN between the VOIP provider and the call centre and a VOIP/Trunk gateway at the call centre PBX.
The problem of connectivity is however not a technical one. There are hundreds of VOIP providers and connecting them all requires some coordinated effort or it will be a big mess.
2. Embed GPS chips in black box VOIP boxes and configure them to send location information when 911 is dialed
That would still require a major integration effort to make sense of the location coordinates in order to send them to the correct 911 call centre and to translate them into human readable address for the 911 operator.
Still, neither can you expect this to be present in every VOIP device, nor can you be sure it will work all the time, especially since you are unlikely to get GPS readings inside buildings when the phone is not located close to the window. You got to have a backup for those cases where GPS isn't present or doesn't work.
3. Require VOIP providers to ask customers the expected physical location of their VOIP phone so that 911 will work when there is no GPS data
4. Require that VOIP providers inform customers that 911 will go to this location if they move their phone
5. Require VOIP providers to allow users to change this location easily either through their phone, or a web interface
6. Require VOIP providers to ask the "where is your phone" question again if other customer information like billing address changes
If you rely on manual updates, people will forget to update, so this is no different from putting warnings on your website informing customers that they ought to do this or that in order to make sure that 911 will work properly.
Also, you seem to forget that VOIP devices are already used in a mobile fashion. Analog telephone adapters such as the Grandstream HandyTone series or the Digium IAXy are specifically designed for travel. You take them with you and plug them in wherever you have an internet connection. There are also software VOIP phones such as Firefly or X-Lite which run on notebook computers and they can connect to just about any VOIP service provider there is with the exception of Skype which is a closed system. Last but not least, there are more and more WiFi VOIP phones coming onto the market and quite possibly this is where the entire VOIP device market will move to. So how are you going to keep track of the location of all those portable/mobile devices? The answer is you can't.
For a simple solution, at least for the time being, major VOIP providers such as Vonage may want to look at how 911 service is handled by mobile phone companies in various countries. In the UK for example, each mobile phone operator has its own emergency call center. If you dial 999 (the UK equivalent of 911) on a mobile phone in the UK, you don't get connected to the police directly. Instead, you get connected to an operator in the mobile phone company's call centre and they ask you what kind of assistance you require. They can also see what your mobile phone number is and which area you are in. They will then bridge your call into a conference call with the appropriate emergency call centre and announce your number and location to the emergency services operator. Once the link is established and you are talking to the emergency services operator directly, the operator of the mobile phone company will drop out of the conference.
This is a proven system which could be adapted for us
the macintosh asterisk mailing list http://www.astm
Why in gods name would you ever depend on VOIP in an emergency, god knows it probably won't work in a fire. If the power goes down, or the internet goes out you have no connection. VOIP should not be counted on in an emergency, I think this girls parents knew this and hence had cell phones, seemingly a device even better than land line because they generally work when land-lines go out. I don't think that this is the fault of Vonage and I don't like how this sneaky texas AG is going to try to make them like a telco and thus tax them. These people should have set up their vonage 911 feature and also told their daughter that in the event of an emergency to use the CELLPHONE!!!!!!!!
Universal Service is for the Schools and Libraries E-Rate program.
Jason
"FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
Fundamentally, if cute little girls whose parents have been shot can't call 911 and ends up hysterical on the news with stories of non-existent 911 service, it doesn't matter how lucid the arguments presented by us slashdotters and VOIP users and supporters are.
I'll enjoy my cheap VOIP service as long as I can, but I have little faith in a positive outcome here.
I was starting to get annoyed at the amount of 911 stuff EVERYWHERE. It's in your account area with big red borders. It's in the agreement. It has a special screen. It's in the pamphlet. It's in the welcome letter. It's in the paper terms of service (2 pages long of just 911 stuff).
They made it SO abundantly clear that this lawsuit will have no merit at all...they even SPECIFICALLY mention the issue of someone else not being able to dial 911 because you didn't explain how VoIP works to a guest or family member.
... if you get a dispatcher like this one...
I don't think I could ask this to the tools working Best Buy and keep a straight face while they figure out how to explain. Might have to enlist the help of my folks.
Even if this was avaialbe there is another issue. Many Vonage customers (like myself) disconnect the TelCo line at the Demarc (where the phone company's line meets your house). This way, you can hook vonage into your phone jack, and have VoIP on all your phone jacks. You must disconnect at the demarc to run this. There is low voltage that runs through POTS lines. Add that voltage with voltage from the Vonage service, and you can fry your vonage box, and possibly start a fire. And if that happens, you won't be able to dial 911!
I disagree. I live in Tucker, GA (Atlanta area), and I just had Bellsouth disconnect my residential phone service last week.
I still have a dial tone on all the phones in my house.
When I attempted to dial out, a message informed me that I could only call 911 from that phone.
I am fairly certain that I am not to be billed for this convenience, having spoken with a Bellsouth representative about this matter.
YMMV, and have a nice day.
PS: I have not tried to duplicate this experiment with my recently disconnected cellphone as the service that I have paid for has not yet expired.
With all due respect, I think you're missing the point here. As far as I can understand, the call didn't go through. If the call had gone through, and the callcenter didn't know where the girl was, they could have *asked* her. This is not just a problem of not knowing a location--and Vonage probably really *should* have made it clear that 911 might not work. It's rather extremely important, doncha think? Even if they're not the right person to sue, it's something probably everyone should be made aware of.
And knowing the location of the place the 911 call is coming from is great, but it should *not* be a necessary pre-condition for access to the 911 callcenter via the 911 phone number. If they wanna get someone in trouble for making a bogus call they can go back to the billing statement. (getting the *phone number* of the person making the phone call *should* be a necessary pre-condition for access to a 911 callcenter)
----
In case that wasn't clear: the clever bit where the 911 callcenter is able to automatically identify where you're calling from is great and important, but if you're trying to say that I can't talk to the 911 people in the event of a real emergency because they're unable to identify *where* I am, you're insane. OTOH, if you're saying they won't talk to me because they can't at least get my phone's phone number... well ok then you could have a point. But if Vonage knows my phone number, then they should be able to electronically share that info with the 911 callcenters. (duh)
Really, it just seems like Vonage is being negligent--trying to show off their phone system as if it were as good as POTS when it isn't yet. And they *forgot* to *mention* it to anybody.
---
Sorry if that still wasn't clear--and sorry if it came off like a flame--it wasn't meant to. I'm just a little annoyed that you're comment made Score 5 and at the top of the page when it seems... wrongheaded to me.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
I used Vonage while living in the US and set up 911, recently I moved to New Zealand and for the life of me I can't get Vonage to turn 911 off
Even if you do not have service, you can always reach 911 a cell phone.
-Valiss
Furry cows moo and decompress.
911 is for *after* you dispense the justice. Then the cleanup crew comes and takes away the unfortunate fool who forgot which state he was in. "Why don't you go try that breaking and entering crap in California next time?"
I must disagree, as I get at least 3 calls a day at work asking what the number is for the emergency police. When I tell them to dial 911, it's always, "Oh...bye!"
Last night I saw the AG whining that this family didn't know they didn't have 911 service, and they didn't find out until it was too late.
Dude. First of all, they did know. Vonage makes it very clear that they don't provide 911 service automatically. The family assumed they'd never need 911, so they didn't care until it was too late. However, there's a big difference in not knowing and not caring. You don't get to sue becuase you changed your mind after you made a calculated risk to save a few bucks.
It felt like he was saying: "We must protect families from themselves by removing their freedom of choice."
What happens if I decide to forego local telephone service because I'm broke? Do I get to sue SBC when my phone plugged into the dead walljack in my apartment doesn't ring 911?
I once called my phone company (bellsouth) and asked about the extras on my bill: /mo. all in assorted things labeled FCC this and federal that.
.15 for storing it, .50 for shipping it, .05 for electricity to the store, .10 for store phone service, and .20 for processing the sale. Then they added .14 actual tax (because the item you're buying is really 2.00 not 1.00.)
Billing rate: 9.95/mo. (no long distance)
Bill: $21-30
I was walked through each one. They are directly passing the cost of government mandated services on to customers. (some were 'government mandated' things they would do anyway, like laying line and fiber to new costomers - well eventually anyway)
The point is that none of those items are a tax collected by the phone company on behalf of the government. All of that money goes to the phone company itself (to pay for services though). Since those items are all ligitimate costs of doing business, they should be folded into the quoted price rather than duplicitiously listed separately.
How would you like it if you went to a gift shop and they charged $1.00 for a post card.. but when you go to pay, they add
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I had pre-configured my address as their documentation states. My call was routed to a PSAP. An operator responded, I told her what happened, and she said "hold on a sec - this isn't usually where 911 calls come" and got me to the right person very, very quickly -- maybe a 5-10sec delay. My address was available to them, they read it off to me, I said yes, that's correct, and they said that they were dispatching the police.
90 seconds later I had six patrol officers, a sargeant, and three cop cars outside. While there was some slight delay as the PSAP operator figured out why she got my call rather than going directly to 911, she knew what to do with it.
And before anyone asks, this is in NYC, and no, I don't live there anymore. :-)
for those special occasions where asshats break down my door, here is my (1)911: http://tinyurl.com/6erbd
What about Speakeasy's OneLink?
Since this does (re)activate the copper to your house, does it mean that you also get the mandated E911 service on it?
I just clicked an ad for Vonage and there was a pretty concise explanation about thier 911 service. I had no problem understanding that A) I would need to provide my Physical location info B) this required a manual registration on my part C) It would not be available immediately D) It would be subject to service interruption so if no power or no internet no 911 (duh) E) The 911 call center will not have my location automatically so I need to provide my info F) It is on my head if I decline or fail to register for 911 service.
http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=911 If you want to see for yourself. They detail pretty clear the drawbacks to the service. This took seconds to check.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
There was no 911 when I was growing up. You kept your local police, hospital and fire station numbers on a sticker on the bottom of the phone or the phone receiver. I'm suprised how it has grown into some kind of "right" that it has to be working.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
2. Embed GPS chips in black box VOIP boxes and configure them to send location information when 911 is dialed
Forget GPS. Traceroute is acurate enough for 911 calls. It can get down to the city your in fairly well. I know there is already a company that provides a service to web sites that tell them what city/state your in. (I've seen it on websites before as well. Kinda scary when the website says something along the lines of "These services are availible in San Jose, CA." "Ahh! WTF!? I live in San Jose, CA!")
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Many posted responses seem to be in direct response to the actual wording of the Slashdot post, but the wording of the post may not be entirely clear.
This lawsuit is filed by the Attorney General's office, as the post reports, but it is filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. This lawsuit concerns how Vonage ADVERTISES it's broadband service product, and not how it implements it or whether Vonage is in some way legally responsible for the failure to contact 9-1-1. Many of these posts seem to repeat how VoIP technology is implemented and how Vonage provides clear details on 9-1-1 service during account setup. This is not about account setup, configuration, or technological implementation. It is about advertising.
The Texas AG contends that 9-1-1 service is a critical consideration in the purchase of the product, and as such, statements about 9-1-1 service limitations should be included in its advertising. This argument falls under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
One might say, "But it says so in a FAQ", "It's on a web site", "It's in the service agreement!", and "There are multiple warnings during the configuration process". This does not matter. If Vonage releases a sales brochure pitching this product without reporting limitations which would be reasonable of critical consideration in the purchase of the product, it may fall under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
The unfortunate occurrence of the violent break-in and the child unable to access 9-1-1 services is, to state bluntly, emotional dressing to get people's attention and awareness to the lawsuit and an example of potential consequence to illustrate that 9-1-1 service is a critical component of the product.
... absolutely annoying commercials. If I hear another woo hoo, I swear I will throw my remote into the TV and watch it explode.
You are truly brave in being able to withstand their annoying commercials. I don't know how you do it. Oh wait, my remote has a mute button....
The real problem is in setting something like this up in your home and not having the family trained on how to use the technology, especially in an emergency. At the very least you need to post direct-dial numbers to police, fire and ambulance svc, poison control right by every phone. You should also post your address and phone number at the top for visitors/babysitters/relatives who may have to call for emergencies. This would be a "best practice" for all phone users, voip or not.
Unless or until VOIP, SIP, Skype systems are able to route to 911 service, then they have a major limitation and are possibly a danger to the average user. If public safety is in question, the 911 system should be opened up to all comers.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
I sent the AG an email telling him why I think he should drop the suit.
Actually this is more like someone suing Ford motor company for putting the brake pedal where the clutch should be and the clutch where the brake should be. Then when the user drives off the lot and hits the clutch and the car doesn't stop but instead rolls out into traffic and kills the driver.
911 is in POTS, 911 is in any mobile phone network. There are emergency protocols on almost all FCC-regulated communication channels. The public expects this to be in place for VoIP. Vonage agrees with this or else they wouldn't advertise this 911-like service. All they need to do to solve the problem is *require* that users activiate their 911 service and then of course make sure the proper routing is in place to make it happen.
I live in Texas. I don't want our attorney general educating anyone about anything. Just like I don't want him teaching my 7-year-old about safe sex, and I don't want him educating for and advertising for VoIP. He is elected to enforce laws and represent the people and state in the courts. And in this case the people clearly demand and expect a usable 911 service, particularly when it is advertised as such. He is doing his job, and I commend him for that.
On another note, I know about these 911 limitations, mostly because I understand what is behind the VoIP technology. My mom OTOH thinks that VoIP + cable modem over her cable network is analogous to POTS + DSL on her copper network. So to her, they are equivalent. It is an understandable assumption.
Unfortunately, in the US at this time, lawsuits are one of the only ways to make businesses sit up and take notice that there are problems in their services and/or products. Governmental regulation is being gutted, so the companies are less concerned about safety, and the people getting injured don't have the power to change the laws by themselves. At this point, civil lawsuits are the last defense of the little people. If the companies have to pay, they may change the thing that was causing harm. In many cases, lawsuits are the only way people can think of TO prevent the same thing happening in the future.
This sounds a lot like you had a rotary service phone line and you were using a touch tone phone.
simply providing dial tone costs money, takes electricity and requires physical hardware at the central office to be dedicated to your line.
putting dialtone on an unserviced lines also creates confusion to technicians who use line testers to see if a line is alive or not. They listen for the dialtone.
Your case does not represent the norm for disconnected phone lines. Normally they are quite dead. No dial tone.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
The preceeding was intended to be funny. I'm not really a redneck, I don't actually own a Rottweiler. In fact, my dog's name is "Romeo", and he's anything but threatening. . .
Step 1. Do NOT get rid of your old phone line. Instead switch it to the lowest cost, limited minute by minute plan available. In Maryland that will run you about 8 bucks a month and comes with no long distance carrier, but you don't need it cause your using VOIP for that.
Step 2. Do NOT use Vonage, instead use a VOIP carrier that allows you to buy/use your own equipment, generally this results in a reduction in your initial hookup expenses and sometimes reduces the monthly rates too.(Depends on the carrier, it really pays to shop around!)
Step 3. Buy a Sipura 3000 as your VOIP router (about $100 US) The Sip3K has a full FX0 access port and you can connect said port to your minimal local line.
Step 4. Construct a dialplan in the Sipura 3000's settings table that directly access's the outside line when dialing 911 and sends 911 calls to the local telco line. (You mat have to set it up so that your emergency dial is 9-911)
Problem solved!
Not only does this allow you to get out to emergency services by dialling 911 and get you the correct emergency call center (since you are using the local land line to access 911) but if the power fails the Sipura will automaticlly fallback to the analog line so you can still call emergency services or the local utility companies or local emerency providers to summon assistance.
In addition it will allow local friends and family to continue to use your old number or (if you set up a dialplan for it) allow an incoming caller (you or anyone you give the magic password to) to call long distance via your VOIP connection. I find that feature really handy since my mother-in-law is from Ireland and she can call back to Ireland to call her family there free with it simply by calling our house and using the passcode.
Simple isn't it?
Hope this helps!
or anytime there's nasty weather and the cable service itself goes out?
should we sue Vonage then, too?
remember, back in the day, every time the power went out your landlines still worked -- and they were never disrupted by thunderstorms or heavy snow either.
i mean, forget whether or not Vonage can route to the proper 911 based on your location, thats irrelevant.
if anyone gets Vonage and doesn't have an established backup plan to call Emergency Services when (not if... WHEN) your cable modem goes down, then you've brought the trouble on yourself.
This whole thing is really negligence on the parent's part and they are just damn lucky their kid wasnt critically injured.
Okay, sorry... didn't mean to come off sounding like the grammar police.
Before 911 (Government sponsored Dial-A-Prayer) people shot their intruders. Color me paranoid, but if someone is at my door ringing the bell, I answer it with a loaded gun in my hand. I have a loaded gun on me at all times in my home. Where I live, I CANNOT AFFORD to wait for 911. 911 is a joke in inner cities, and it's not even CONSIDERED where I live. Police response is to clean up after the crime here, not to prevent/stop it.
I can draw my sidearm and fire faster than you can pull out your phone and DIAL 911, let alone speak to someone.
Thank you for the laugh, I needed it today. I've visited Texas, that was enough.
If you have no account, you have no service.
:) Insurance companies
If you have no service, you can't be "roaming".
The FCC requires all providers honor 911
calls regardless of roaming agreements.
A phone without a subscription is a phone
without service. You ain't getting 911 on
that phone without a provider.
That could be an interesting market down
the road. 5 bucks a month for 911 only
cellular service
make more providing less!
Thank you mods, for proving that /. is just a bunch of Worthless fucktards that rely on the government and their parents to give them what they need and want. Funny thing, though, around half "claim" they're Libertarian.
_ ___
BTW, yes, 911 is unconstitutional and should be abolished.
_____________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is a
vote to abolish the constitution itself.
What gun-crazed European country are you living in? You need to move to the good ole U. S. of A. where things are much safer and we don't have kookie people answering the door with loaded guns.
;^)
People do stupid things...
and one of those things is relying on Vonage for 911 service.
when VOIP usage exceeds 5% of the population then I might consider your arguments; until then, you're an asshat. You have to go far out of your way to get VOIP at this time. As such, you understand that it's not standard and you might have some subsequent responsibilities or liabilities that most others do not.
-theed
My company is considering a purchase which includes a PBX based on Asterisk.
With this, our office will have "extensions" in various cities and states, all with the same incoming and outgoing, local CA phone numbers. The PBX will be connected to standard, hard-wired telephone lines, and will operate and act as normal telephone extensions.
If you picked up one of these phones and dialed "9", you'd get a dial tone in CA, wherever you happened to be. This is a big feature, since our business does business remotely all the time, and having people in different offices in different cities on the same "internal" PBX is a BIG DEAL.
The phone may be in Phx, AZ. The dialtone comes from a switch box in Northern CA. So, what should happen when I dial 911? What happens when I dial 911 from San Diego, and get an operator near Truckee, 600 miles away? My own home/office is not much closer, at 591 miles.
This 911 locality problem is one that's only really beginning to surface, and will get alot worse before it gets better...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.