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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."
I could be wrong now, but with Vonage, you go in and list your exact location to setup 911 (and you have to change it if you move, if you want the appropriate 911). Having never had to call 911 while using it, however, I have no idea what it's like after that. Regardless, however, Vonage does know your location (if you set it up, which they tell you to do). I have no idea about any other providers.
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
pitiful excuse. vonage certainly KNEW how to hook it up to dial the 911's. if nothing else they could have had a landline in each county, so it was doable.
however, what's really the point is that vonage let them believe that 911 would work perfectly - which it didn't.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
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!
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
How does Vonage lead them to believe it would work perfectly? From vonage's website there is a little link on the front page entitled 911 dialing. The SECOND section says:
911 Dialing Is Not Automatically Set Up for Use. You Must Pre-Activate 911 Dialing. You May Decline 911 Dialing.
Of course this is America and no one reads the documentation and just expects things to work. Did you also know if you dial 911 with your phone police won't know where you are? Some people were on a boat that started to sink and they dialed 911. They didn't know what lake they were on, what city there were in or the friend's address whom they were visiting. They drowned and died and now their families are suing the police because they couldn't help them.
Sure it would be great if we lived in a world where you could just should 911 and the police would come and save you but we don't. I also don't want to live in a world where lawnmowers need to contain warnings that basically say "don't touch the spinning blades, you could loose a hand" or "don't use this to trim your hedges dumbass" or else the manufacturers get sued. I don't want to live in a world where you have to list warnings in advertisements. My other question is would cell phone companies be required to do the same?
I mean come on, does Microsoft warn you that you might get a virus or that someone could hack into your computer? Of course not, why state the obvious. I have vonage and I certainly knew of it's 911 limitations. I also knew of the cell phone 911 limitations. (Of course the cell phone limitations are starting to change and they can usually track you to your nearest cell tower. Except not all police stations have the updated equipment)
What's sad is the John family had an accessable cell phone, but when the daughter couldn't get through via internet phone, she was paniced enough she ran next door to a neigbor's phone instead of using it.
While Vonage should certainly take steps here, there are no steps at their end that will guarentee good results in an emergency situation.
Who is John Cabal?
How would you dial 911 if your telephone service is down?
I don't know about you, but I generally don't lose Internet service unless I've also lost my land line (at least not within the past 6 years). In my particular situation (and thousands of other's) my television, internet and telephone are all coming in on one RJ-6 line.
I haven't used Vonage, but if as others are saying in this thread, they give you a setup procedure for what is going to be called if you dial '911' - that certainly seems like due diligence to me.
http://windows.scares.us
That marketing implies a form, fit, and function replacement. If for example the service was incapable of making international calls to Nigeria, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but when human safety is at stake, this is a big deal. If they were sufficiently up front with this limitation of VOIP then they are not at fault. If however they buried this material in a 20 page contract or do not adequetly inform their customers of this major limitation then I hope they lose this suit big time.