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

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[Skye16]

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.

Reason number one

[LiquidCoooled]

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)

Re:SUE THEM ALL!

[ghoti]

It's not so easy. So many people are getting VoIP now, and few of them are able to tell you the difference between it and POTS. VoIP is offering services comparable to old-fashioned phones, and thus they will have to provide the same services for emergencies. If I pick up a phone to call 911, I don't care if it's a landline, mobile, VoIP oder telepathy-based - it just has to work, period.

You get what you pay for

[godless dave]

from the article:

Peter John said his daughter was hysterical after the robbery and didn't see a nearby cell phone.

Mr. John made the decision to save money by signing up with an unregulated telephony service. Traditional phone services are required to provide enhanced 911 service and they charge the customer for it (it's a line item on your bill). VOIP is unregulated; that's one reason it costs less. But you can't have it both ways. I'm sympathetic to the urge to limit the spread of regulations that hamper innovation and increase costs, but with less regulation comes more responsibility for the consumer to know what they are buying.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[Daytona955i]

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)