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."

Comments

Bah

[PeeAitchPee]

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.

Clear to me, why not them?

[Slayback]

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.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[interiot]

Same for cell phones. You can have a cell phone that has no account... you could be internationally roaming in the U.S. for what it's worth, but the FCC still requires cell tower operators to accept any incoming call for 911 no matter what.

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?

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[doj8]

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.)

Much BS about Vonage

[GodLived]

After RTFA, (grin), and being a Vonage user, I am outraged. It's not like the article says, folks.

...filed a lawsuit against Vonage, the country's largest Internet-based telephone service provider, for failing to make clear to consumers that the company's current service does not include access to traditional emergency 9-1-1 service.

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."

...[Vonage] fails to make clear that when a customer signs up for Vonage's service, the customer does not automatically have the ability to dial 9-1-1

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.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[GreyPoopon]

And yet, all customers who sign up with Vonage get a copy of the letter below. Sorry, but these people were well-informed about how 911 dialing works for Vonage, and were just plain too lazy to set the service up. I want traditional 911 dialing on Vonage as much as the next person, but suing Vonage isn't the way to make it happen. I think the better path would be for Texas residents to sue the counties to get them to work with Vonage to provide a more functional service.

FROM: Vonage DigitalVoice Customer Care
SUBJECT: 911 DIALING NOT YET ACTIVATED-IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ

Account Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Telephone Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Customer Name
Customer Address
Customer City, State, Zip

Dear Customer,

Thank you for requesting 911 Dialing for phone number xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Please read the following information carefully.

DIALING 911 IS NOT YET ACTIVATED ON YOUR PHONE LINE. THIS PROCESS MAY TAKE SEVERAL DAYS. DO NOT DIAL 911 FROM THIS PHONE LINE UNTIL YOU GET A CONFIRMATION EMAIL FROM US.

Please review these steps to better understand how Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) 's Dialing 911 feature works.

. Using the information you provided, we will map your address and telephone number to your area's nearest Public Safety Answering Point ("PSAP").

. This process will be completed within several days.

. We will email you a CONFIRMATION LETTER as soon as the 911 Dialing feature has been activated for XXXXXXXXXXXXX. (Note that if you have multiple Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) numbers you MUST activate 911 Dialing for each number separately.)

. When you dial 911 from your Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) phone, your call is routed from the Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) network over the Public Switch Telephone Network ("PSTN") to your PSAP's general number, where a trained professional will provide you with assistance.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT 911 DIALING IS DIFFERENT THAN TRADITIONAL 911. We encourage you to login to your Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) account and click on Features in your Account Dashboard to learn more.

Please contact us by:

Email: customercare@vonage.com
Toll Free Phone: 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357)
Fax: 1732-333-1353
24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Thank You.

Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) Customer Care

Test your 911 now

[bluGill]

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.

Re:Well, I'll disagree with the crowd.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

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.