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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."
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.
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.
So, really, the suggested solution for VoIP now is to get an inactive cell phone, and keep it around in case you ever need to dial 911.
I don't know if VoIP could ever have this provision... that just the fact that you're able to connect to the public IP network means that you're able to dial 911?
When I installed Vonage (at three different locations so far), you were most definitely told that you have to activate 911 and that it did not take effect immediately when you activated it. Activating it took about 10 seconds. It was part of the installation process, if I recollect. Once activated, I received an email telling me that it was not available yet. In a day or two, I received an email saying it was active.
Do you have some evidence of Vonage's 911 relay working only during office hours? Since, as far as I know, Vonage's 911 relay is a single 24/7 point for the entire country (in Arizona, I believe) I find that unlikely.
I could buy that some of the emergency services (police/fire/ambulance) are only available during office hours. Not all areas have 24/7 police/fire/ambulance services. That is not a Vonage issue, that is a locality issue. There are still areas not served by 911. In many rural areas, 911 relays to different dispatchers depending on the time of day (State Police vs. Town Police, for example). Vonage likely does not have direct access to 911 at that level.
I agree that 911 and VOIP need to work together much more. 911 is a complicated system. There seems to definitely be some turf issues I recollect from when it was deployed in my home state a few years back.
(For those who do not live in rural areas, please accept that very small towns often don't have the same level of emergency services coverage that cities do. I've been in towns where you have to call the State Police during work hours, because the policeman is volunteer and works during the day. You could call him once he got home from work though. In the town where I grew up you called Florence - she figured out who to call for you because she had a list of where all the volunteers worked.)
-- Dan Jenkins, Rastech Inc.
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"
The real number to which your 911 call is forwarded is some sort of state secret
Bullshit. Call up the 911 business office ( NOT 911, look it up ), ask for the cell phone emergency number
BAM! You're gold.
Asterisk user here, and what do you know, 911 DOES work for me
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Trying to answer my own question, here is rule as it applies to wireless, still looking for land-line. http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/wireless911sr vc.html
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.
Who are "The 911" people? Do you have any idea how 911 works?
s tory.html. Scroll to the bottom for more info.
Educate thyself, brother: http://www.911dispatch.com/911_file/history/911hi
:)
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Not at all, ever, anywhere!
There have been numerous lawsuits against police
departments, emergency rescue services, fire
services, and local governments across the USA.
In every instance, the courts have ruled that
neither the local government nor the emergency
services have an obligation to respond to any
emergency within a time frame that will preclude
loss of life or permanent disability. The emblem
and phrase on the side of police vehicles "To
Protect and Serve" is only feel-good marketing.
That said, I do believe that there is a case
proceeding to the US Supreme Court over this
issue. The original venue was Cook County, IL
(Chicago area), if my memory serves me. The case
involves domestic violence; the husband/boyfriend
had one or more restraining orders against him,
and the police and/or district attorney failed to
provide either police protection, or else failed
to keep the defendent incarcerated, with tragic
results. I really don't think the plaintif will
stand a chance of winning the case -- the legal
and financial repercussions would be enormous
for local governments.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
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.
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.
The Terms of Service is not the only place the 911 info is located. It's at the TOP of the features page (across two columns with a read table heading), it's on the "about vonage" page, and they have multiple FAQs.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
"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."
To be precise, it's Vontage CUSTOMERS who want access to 911 without paying for it. Part of the appeal of VOIP is that you don't have to pay $10-$15/ month in miscellaneous telephone taxes on it.
Note that when you call 911 from a Vonage line the people who end up handling the call cannot access your location information, so if you need assistance, you better know where you are.
This is all covered in detail, more than once, in the terms of service Vonage provides. They beat you over the head with the 911 info, you can't miss it if you are paying attention at all.
It is pretty dumb that there are not yet any hooks into the emergency system that they can access. Its not their fault, its a problem with the system, and I'm sure they would be more than happy to fix it from their end if they could.
Do you have some evidence of Vonage's 911 relay working only during office hours?
Well I have to opposite evidence. I used my Vonage phone to call 911 very early one morning. 911 apparently did not have my address (even though I thought I had registered it), but it was answered promptly and we had the ambulance there in minutes.
Apparently in California the Vonage 911 calls are routed through the CHP just as with cell phones.
Sig is on vacation
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!