Slashdot Mirror
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."
Does Texas produce anything besides asshats?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
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
I agree that it's difficult to understand how anyone prone to such simple mistakes could make it far beyond minimum wage. Perhaps the English requirements for writers of documentation and warning labels aren't quite what they should be.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Negative; there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding 911 testing. Some city governments or police departments if you ask them will even erroneously tell you that you cannot call to test your 911 service. This is completely false. You should test your 911 service when you move, change phone companies, get a new telephone number, port a telephone number, or add a new telephone line. You should probably not need to test 911 from your cellular phone though, unless you cannot get a straight answer from your provider as to whether or not your area is equipped with e911 or has to rely on old-style tower locating (it's nice to know either way)
You can call 911 to test your 911 service. Depending on your provider, county, or state you must either call the dispatch center first to inform them you are making a test call AND/OR you must call 911 and immediately inform them that you are calling to confirm your service and ask them to verify your location information.
What I think is sad is
1. Houston Police department keeps the phone number that 911 calls are forwarded to secret,
2. That the central office for the phone company in Houston make it artificialy difficult for VoIP provider's to tap into the traditional 911 system that they let the cellular provider's in.
When I look up the police department of my town, the phone number listed in the phone book is answered by the same people that answer when I dial 911, actualy the same people that answer for city police and fire, county sheriff, regonal EMS, and the branch office of the state police! With this system, I would just have to let vonage know my physical location and my 911 calls automaticaly go to the right place.
Actualy I'm not that worried about it anyways. Around here half the time you dial 911 on a cell phone you get connect to Canadians in Sarnia/Lambton county rather than Americans Port Huron/St. Clair county and Vica Versa so the lads have gotten pretty good at cross-boarder dispaching.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds