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

Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[DeadSea]

I'm not sure that Vonage is the right person to sue here. 911 does need to be able to work from VOIP phones, but my understanding is that the 911 system is not easy to hook up.

The real number to which your 911 call is forwarded is some sort of state secret. The 911 call centers don't want to be called except for when 911 is dialed to avoid pranks, mistakes, and confusion. If you dial 911 from Vonage they forward your call to the publicly listed police number for your area. If they could figure out what the call center for your area would be, they would foward the call there. But my understanding is the list is not available to them.

The 911 problems with VOIP are that like cell phones, you can take a VOIP phone with you. It is not tied to a location. Unlike cell phones, you can't pinpoint the location as being near a tower. You are just "on the internet" which is not nearly as helpful. VOIP does not have embedded GPS either.

Here is a list of things that I think need to happen. Lets sue until the do (I don't care who):

1. Make 911 call center numbers available to VOIP providers
2. Embed GPS chips in black box VOIP boxes and configure them to send location information when 911 is dialed
3. Require VOIP providers to ask customers the expected physical location of their VOIP phone so that 911 will work when there is no GPS data
4. Require that VOIP providers inform customers that 911 will go to this location if they move their phone
5. Require VOIP providers to allow users to change this location easily either through their phone, or a web interface
6. Require VOIP providers to ask the "where is your phone" question again if other customer information like billing address changes

I'm not sure how well the GPS thing would work indoors. You might have to have the box say "I can't get a GPS signal, I won't work until I have one. Go plug me in near a window until I can see a satelite, then you can put me in the basement."

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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.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[WebHostingGuy]

I believe the logic behind suing Vonage is this--if you are going to be taking on a utility service to consumers but you (i.e., Vonage) still don't want to be regulated by collecting any taxes on 911 nor a telecommunications entity then you will bear the brunt of appearing to be a utility service, providing a utility service but not regulated nor subject to the laws applying to utility services. Therefore, you will be subject to taking responsibility for all actions coming from the use of your service. There is no doubt in the coming age Vonage and other VOIP providers will come under some modified regulations but until then states are going to have no mercy on them when they are being beaten by VOIP providers at each turn.

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.)

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

[chris234]

>What did people do before there was a 911 system?

Died more often?

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)

Huh?

[Cytlid]

I work for an ISP/Communications company in my area. I recently switched my number over to a beta voip test network we've been playing with. I seriously have no idea if 911 will work correctly. (Seeing as I'm geographically close to our switch, maybe it will).

So I'm a tad concerned about this.

On the other hand, I did have to dial 911 in the last year (or two?), *before* I had the VoIP service, while I had a traditional land line.

An electrical cable outside my house was about 60 years old and it decided it would short in the middle of the night. (Think this was last April or the year before). This was the main power to the house. I went out to investigate, and it was smoldering. I had no idea if the house was burning on the inside of the walls or not.

I run back inside and dial 911. Guess what? The girl didn't know my address. She fumbled for a few minutes and finally I gave it to her.

So if I know 911 had problems beforehand, why would I worry about my voip service? I've tried to make it completely clear to my family if something goes awry, we would need to use our cell phones...

911 isn't free...

[mecro]

This is easy.

While Vonage is great and all, they are not taxed by anyone, as of yet. If you look at your baby bell phone bill, you'll see a tax of a few bucks on there each month for Emergency 911 service.

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.

That is why the baby bell's are refusing access to the PRIVATE 911 network which they have established. We take 911 for granted, but it is a service that is private, and it is a service that we pay for.

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.