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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."
Traceroute? :p
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
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?
Now I have to wonder, where in the world are the 911 prank callers? Since we have a 911-enabled VOIP network with no trace feature, how are we to stop all the pranksters who like to call 911 with fake calls? AND, lets not forget the legitimate calls being ignored or suffering from the DDoS they're encountering. Are the people who are really being raped, murdered or worse, going to get through to the 911 ops?
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Yeah they can. Both from tower information/ triangulation and GPS.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
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.
This looks like a decision passed to kowtow to the region bells who think they're unfairly harassed by providing 911 services.
With wifi, ssh tunnels and unspecified internal deployment of handsets in a corporation it's ridiculous to expect vonage et al to provide 911 services comparable to the regional bell.
I fully expect 911 calls to end up getting into a frenzy for an incident that is eventually located in bombay.
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 just got Vonage, and it has pseudo 911. You activate it by entering your address.
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It's not real 911 because it connects to an intermediary service that then connects you to the real 911.
http://www.vonage.com/help_knowledgeBase_article.
Ask and your request will be answered. People who call 911, usually can speak and usually can tell where they are. That should take care of 99.9% of the problem.
Oh well, what the hell...
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.
As I see it, one of the problems with this is simply determining where "phone" services begin and end. For example, while Vonage or Lingo may be a real 'phone replacement' and for 99.9% of users should be able to do 911 service, how about Skype? If you only use Skypeout and you only use it via a headset on a laptop, is that VoIP? It certainly *is* "Voice over IP", but does that make it a phone service that should need 911 service?
If they start classifying things like Skype as a voice telecommunications service and requiring 911 calls to function, then what's next? 911 requirements for Teamspeak?
Maybe a VoIP "phone" is one which can place a call which eventually gets circuit switched on one end, even if 99% of the transit is packet switched.
It seems to me that what really needs to happen is a revamping of the 911 system to deal with the portability of numbers. You want 911? Fine, go somewhere and configure your address any time you move the phone around. When you dial 911, it transmits your entered address. Possibly the hardware/software acting as your phone also monitors the MAC address of its default gateway after you change the address associated; if the MAC address changes but the address has not, a warning goes out to emergency services that notes that there is reason to believe the address may not be completely reliable (and thus, hopefully an emergency operator can confirm it with you when you call).
Lots of little things rely on the phone network. My house alarm, for example, will freak out completely if I cut my phone service entirely, because it uses the phone line to keep in touch with the alarm monitoring service.
One way this could be done is if all of the 911 services also have a full (area)-xxx-xxxx phone number. You would then alias that to "911" in your VOIP hardware.
It can be very hard when you are disoriented, in pain, cannot speak, cannot breathe, or when there is smoke and fire and your kids are trapped, and the simplest of tasks becomes damn near impossible.
911 works because it is simple and pervasive, a four year old can understand 911, guide dogs and other service animals have been trained to use 911 call buttons.
IPv6 would allow you to deduce the geographical location, as the IP address is a function of the logical location, which can then be used to infer the most probable geographical location. However, IPv4 has nothing that allows you to infer location by address. This may actually be the driving force for IPv6, given that none of the other reasons (privacy, addressability, etc) have ever worked with people.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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