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FCC to Push VoIP 911 Requirements
maotx writes "Originaly declared a regulation free area, VoIP is going under a new look. With complaints against it, the FCC has decided to move forward with its original plan to require VoIP providers to provide 911 support. This brings up interesting questions on how they're going to know where in the world your VoIP enabled laptop is when you call 911."
With the universal adoption of GPS, it wouldn't be hard to put a GPS receiver on a USB key-fob and relay the information in some standardized fashion.
;)
It's being bundled into cell phones these days for the same purpose.
Just don't bundle it into the computer itself, or the conspiracy theorists may become the conspiracy realists.
Well, what about when you use your VoIP through a VPN that is piggy backing off the business next door's wireless?
What does it matter where you are specifically? Sure they can find you from a landline, but cell phones can dial 911 and they can't trace you with that either...
Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb...
This brings up interesting questions on how they're going to know where in the world your VoIP enabled laptop is when you call 911.
Your billing information should be able to be used for that purpose. Just redirect to the 911 service local to the billing address. Granted, it won't be too helpful for people who move around a lot, but it should be sufficient 99% of the time.
How do 911 calls currently work from cellphones? Never had to call myself...
If they follow the original proposal, there will not be a location requirement for 911, just a requirement for 911 connectivity. That is, if you dial 911 on a VoIP phone you will get a 911 operator...but you will still need to tell that operator your location. Some VoIP vendors may impliment a primary residence that gets displayed to 911 operators, but this would be optional. Currently if you dial 911 on a VoIP phone, you will only get a 911 operator if your VoIP vendor has implimented the feature voluntarily.
I would think an easy solution would be to REQUIRE that a person signing up for VOIP service provide their address for 911 service before even turning on their access to the network. This was prompted because of problems with people who were too ignorant or lazy to submit this information even when prompted several times to by the provider. (Specifically- Vonage.) If the information was required prior to service activation- it wouldn't be a problem.
It will still be an issue for people who travel with their VOIP boxes, and there probably isn't a solution without going to GPS and making the whole thing more expensive than a regular POTS line.
Once again- we are looking to legislate (or at least regulate) personal responsibility.
I have Verizon Fios internet service, along with Sunrocket VoIP service. I was quite interested in finding out if 911 even connected me to the right place, as several people said it did not work w/ VoIP providers. So I called the non-emergency number in Rowlett, Tx. They answered my call, and I let them know I was going to test my 911 service as I had a new phone provider. I hung up, dialed 911. It took maybe 3-4 seconds to get a ring tone, and the emergency operator in Rowlett, picked up the phone, and asked what my emergency was. I told her that I just called the non-emergency number, and was testing 911. She then informed me my name, and my address came thru with the call. So looks like I don't have anything to worry about. :)
Also make sure if you are testing your 911, you call the non-emergency number first, although you never know where you might wind up.
The comparisons with cellphones (and there lack of 911 location information) needs to take a few point into consideration:
1. Calls from cellphones to 911 typically go the State Police dispatcher who will then have to contact the local dispatcher to actually send someone (other then the state police) to the caller. This takes extra time and puts one more person in the game of 'telephone' that is played from 911 requester to 911 provider.
2. Adding VOIP to the State police dispatcher will make them even more overwhelmed when the majority of VOIP calls are going to be made from a fixed location and as such should be routed to a local dispatcher.
3. Many times when someone calls 911 they give a poor, incomplete or inaccurate assessment of what the problem is (and where they are), ask any first responder how many calls are completely different from what they get dispatched as (As a volunteer ems provider, I experience this all time).
This gps talk is cute, but how about we simply add an address that needs to be associated with the VOIP account when its opened but can be disabled by a user if they want, so the small minority of VOIP users that are moving it around can 'opt-out' of it while grandma has it in place for here vonage account her grandson set up for her at her home.
The fact is, VoIP is going to blow the phone paradigm away in about 30 years. Right now, home networks are getting VoIP boxes and software, and users are providing addresses for these home networks because those boxes are stationary. But what about people who are smart enough to take their VoIP box with them? What about the posibility of VoIP over wireless in 30 years?
The copper wire switched networks have specific addresses they can link to nodes because the network was proprietary and controlled. Now that the network (the internet) is open, it doesn't yet have this feature that can tie an IP address, particularly a roaming IP address, to a location.
The only thing I can think of right now are GPS locators on all phones which have a frequency only the 911 operators can access... but that could be abused way too easily.
For now, asking the VoIPs to provide 911 service like vonage does is enough for the time being, but soon they'll have to solve this problem for VoIP roamers, and that will require a "think-outside-the-box" solution. As VoIP evolves, 911 will have to be completely redesigned.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
As I understand it, they want to put both E911 and universal access surcharges on VoIP phones. The big telcos want this because they have to pay them and they are a barrier to entry for small companies.
But what do you regulate? SIP phones? There is a SIP phone in every copy of Windows XP, and freely available ones for all OSs. They can all register with proxies and make VoIP calls. They have to pay to go out to the PSTN right now, though.
Instead, they are putting the regs if the service gives you a phone number for incoming calls. Ie. it's backwards. If you can _receive_ calls (without necessarily the ability to make them) from the PSTN, then you have to be able to make an outgoing call to 911.
But anything can be a phone now. It can look like an old phone or it can be a piece of software. Anything can be set up to receive calls, or make them, or both. Or not talk to the PSTN at all. Or talk to it in limited ways (for example there are dial-in numbers that let you call from the PSTN and then enter a Free World Dialup number, making every FWD phone able to receive a call from the PSTN.)
This is a dangerous rathole. Accept that voice != emergency service path and find a better way.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Personally I like to make my self as anonymous as possible... I spoof my MAC (like I have now 00-00-00-00-00-01), spoof my IP or use an open access point 99% of the time. ( the connection I'm using now isn't even mine. (Yes I'm paranoid) So if I'm using all of these things (in paticular an open access point not to mention that my p3 cpu has the id disabled). Should I have to woory about a GPS keyfob? NO! Would I consider buying a computer with GPS integrated? What do you think? Not bloody likely.
If Joe User can call a real phone, then why shouldn't Joe User expect 911 when they dial 911?
Because Joe User was explicitly told not to expect it when he signed up for the service.
I suspect that the final solution will be that 911 centers will start working together, and VoIP providers will provide a meta-911 service that accepts a "roaming" user's call, gets information about that user, and their location, whats wrong, and then forwards the user information and call to the correct 911 call center for whatever city the user is in at the moment.
I think that's the best idea, but it seems the FCC is pushing for something different, which is much harder to implement. They want VoIP to work with the regular 911 system, and that's simply unreasonable. The regular 911 system is run by local governments, and VoIP is inherently national (really global) in scope. If the government wants to provide 911 service for VoIP users, then they should create a national center which can then either transfer a call or relay the information, anywhere in the country. Local 911 operators aren't really trained in handling calls that are coming from people in far away places, and making them handle this would be too confusing. Maybe you could route to the local 911 operator when you're absolutely sure of the location of the call's origination, but with VoIP there will be many situations where you just can't be 100% sure, and then it's best to have your call sent somewhere where people are trained to take calls from all over the world (I say the world, not the country, because even if you're not going to handle calls from other countries you need to at least train people how to take them).
GPS doesn't resolve this, as GPS doesn't work in all locations, especially indoors. With a cell phone this isn't as big of a problem - a cell tower is at least close enough where you can train nearby counties to handle calls for each other. So yes, having the GPS location is nice, but at least you can get close enough even without GPS.
What happens when you call 911 from a land line thats 50-60 miles away from the nearest real city?
I don't know what happens in Missouri, but in New Jersey 911 service is handled on a county by county basis. Everyone in the county goes to the same 911 dispatch center, and dispatch then contacts your local police/fire/ambulance. For fire and ambulance, the dispatch is done via radio. Emergency workers have pagers which are set to listen to the dispatch freqency. A call is proceeded by a special tone which activates the pager. The pager is then set to listen to the channel where the dispatch comes - "Station 1501, 1300 Main Street, a motor vehicle accident". Originally, and still in some locations, the tone also sets off the siren at the fire house. If a station is recalled (maybe it turns out not to be an emergency in the first place), this will also go out on the dispatch channel. Emergency responders who have two-way radios (generally just the officers) can then talk to dispatch through another freqency, to get more detailed information, to report when they are responding, arriving, etc. There is also a two-way radio in all the emergency vehicles. In theory you could call dispatch directly to get information, there are "red phones" in the stations which provide a direct line.