Slashdot Mirror
VoIP Providers Given 120 Days to Provide 911 Service
linuxwrangler writes "According to this SFGate article, federal regulators have given VoIP providers 120 days to provide 911 service to their customers. The vote came after testimony from people including a Florida woman who had her infant die after being unable to call 911 from her internet phone. VoIP providers are also required to notify their customers of the deadline and of the limitations of VoIP 911 service."
Wow...I'd hate to be head of that project...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
is 912.
My cell phone works with 911 even if you cancel all other service to the phone. Does that mean broadband and Voip companies will have to do the same?
I always wondered why it was that my cell phone always has to have 911 access, yet Ma Bell can cut my service and I get no dial tone if I don't pay my bills.
Would to provide new handsets with basic Mobile/cell phone phone functionality to hitch hike on the current networks emergency dialing capabilities. .
It would be a short term soloution indeed , but then 120 days is a very short term
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
How dare they interfer with the free market!??!?!? We all now free market is *the* BESTEST!!!11!!
They're already in compliance. You should read the disclaimers though. Every other paragraph goes out of its way to say that this isn't really 911 service. I guess the problem is that it's tied to your voip box. I could pack it in my suitcase and take it to florida on vacation. if I plug it into my mother's cable modem line, my phone number will ring there. Unfortunately, if I dial 911, I get the 911 dispatch center near my home in the chicago area. You can't really fault them for doing it. Maybe they could do some sort of ip address geographic lookup. But I doubt it would be reliable.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Just to plug a company I invest in, 8x8 or Packet8 already has E911 because they use Level3's network. So the message is, use Level3 for your network, have E911, and make me money by increasing Level3's profits! :-)
Why should VoIP providers be required to provide 911?
You cannot be guaranteed the same level of reliability with VoIP. Public telephone service operators are held to strict regulations regarding PSTN service, ISPs are not.
Something could break with a person's cable or DSL service and I would have to call and file a trouble ticket. Then, maybe 5 days later, a truck will arrive at their house to fix it. The next internet worm could be released at any time, causing major congestion on the internet which hinders usage of VoIP.
The idea that VoIP providers must provide emergency services is bogus. If you want something for emergencies, then get a land line. The internet is not reliable enough to depend on for emergency communications like this.
Shouldn't it be that providers can say "Whoops, sorry, no 911 with our service", and that's it?
Why can't they?
I mean, if someone wants to pay less and go the cheap route, should they really expect the same amount of service?
The government should NOT be regulating this kind of stuff, IMHO.
...I moved into a place with no phone service (California, mid-1990s) the phone would work and you could call two numbers, IIRC--611 to set up phone service and 911 for emergencies. If you tried to dial anything else it wouldn't work. Am I remembering correctly? If so, is that still the case? Is that the case everywhere?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
When will legislators learn not to hurriedly pass new laws right after terrible things happen? We all know it's not a good idea.
What do the libertarians/EFF have to say about this?
It seems against libertarian principles to require anything of VOIP providers (other than that they not defraud people).
E.g. they didn't say it had 911 service. Nor did they say it would work in a blackout.
Yet it is hard to argue with (cue violins) dead babies.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Antecdote and tantrum dictates the law of the land.
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Initially, when noticing this article, I immediately thought of Skype as potentially having issues under this legislation (due to its ability to 'Skype-out' to phone lines). The article would seem to point to it not being required to comply under the 'Instant messaging' software gotcha. If Skype were required to implement 911 support, its possible they could have problems distinguising between those who use the software for internet-based voice chat and internet telephony.
Business Voyeur
Five boxes of instant soup are on the way!
What part of the "This service cannot be used for 911 calls" did the users not understand.
Most VOIP providers have stated in their contracts that the service can't be used for emergency calls because of location issues (aka you can be logged in form another country).
Now they are being forced to provide 911. How many 911 calls will go to the wrong call center due to reasons like people moving but not updating their contact details, or someone logged into the voip service at their friends place, or even "Well we provide 911 but all calls are handled by the call center closest to our HQ"
Could she not have run to the neighbor's house and borrowed a phone?
please help!!!!
DHCP has to make this an impossibility unless you can get people to insert addresses at the VOIP level. Ditto for VPN connections -- if I am vpn'd into the office and had to dial 911 it would suck for the ambulance to show up at work. In the bad old days, your address had that field lovingly known as ICBM address (e.g. physical lat lon of the system).
If they want to be a phone company, they have to follow phone company regulations in matters like this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Before 911 that you posted a telephone number for each of the emergency services next to your phone. Phone books would have the numbers inside the front cover.
I'm sorry to hear about the infant dying. But shouldn't VOIP users if they are technically savvy to use VOIP also be responsible and be sure that they can dial (ie have phone number handy) an emergency service?
As another idea, why not have an old cell phone around that is plugged in. You do not need to have a cell plan to dial 911.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
You can't design, manufacture, and ship new hardware in 120 days.
Dammit, then, I should be able to push "9-1-1" right now on my numeric keypad and somehow be connected! After all, I'm on the Intarweb, and the numbers are RIGHT THERE!
My baby could DIE!
Break out the 1,024 cases of Mountain Dew and a ton of pizza!
Time for a hack-a-thon!
Vonage, to pick an example, already supports 911 services. But you have to set it up to tell it where to call. Most people, including that stupid lady in the article, simply don't set up the 911 service. All Vonage will likely do is change it to where you must setup your 911 service before the system actually works.
But then I gotta wonder, how loosely do they define "VoIP" services? I mean, Skype is a VoIP service, technically. You can use it to connect to the PSTN and dial phone numbers if you pay for the priviledge, right? It's outgoing only though. But how in the heck would they handle this sort of thing? Configure the client with where you are? Would this law even apply?
These are the kind of problems I see with regulating this sort of thing too early.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
So the only proof you provide is that you're an idiot.
Sure, I guess thats really important, if you dont want to TELL THEM WHERE YOU ARE WHEN YOU CALL.
This is like that russian pencil, Million dollar US space pen email I get all the time.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Looks like I have 120 days to gather as many names as possible of houses strictly running VOIP phones so I can rob them of all their property while they sit back and wait for the 911 service to be connected ;-).
Seriously, though, I must be ignorant on this subject. I had no idea you couldn't dial 911 from a VOIP telephone. To be honest, I never gave it much thought.
My lame blog.
I believe they already offer real E911 in one US state and are going to add many more very soon. Here is a link to the press release.
Nine times out of 10 the person on the line can say approximately where they are. That should take no more than 3 seconds. In cases where someone dials, but cannot speak or is forcibly removed from the phone, this is a problem.
Regarding that problem, there are several issues. A traceroute or database of who is using top-level IPs and their locations is a workaround. Perhaps a better idea is new and open VoIP standards. There could be a way to code the "area" into the data packet if an emergency number is dialed. Of course, the end-user must be responsible for keeping this updated.
This is a bad move, in my opinion. All this does is force people to provide "good enough" service in the next 120 days. If the issue is that VoIP calls to 911 are problematic, then attach a stigma to using it in the home. No amount of money saved is going to make me trust a system created in 4 months as opposed to one that's been refined for decades.
If it's not ready for the home, then it's not ready. VoIP should start with businesses. If you really want it in your house, I believe it should come with the understanding that 911 is either going to be suboptimal or just plain unreliable.
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
She made her own choice. It is no different than buying a Geo Metro & suing GM for damages when a semi-truck destroys the car in a crash.
Don't punish me because of other people's choices. Why should I have to pay more for VoIP when I have a cell phone that works for 911? I should have the choice.
When I subscribed I had to have Vonage configure my 911 service. It took some time, but it ended up working out. The key is this though...if my Broadband connection goes down for any reason, so does my 911 service. SO...I have a stand-by cdll phone just in case.
Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is here. At least with Vonage, the make sure you understand you need to configure 911. User responsibility...go figure.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Yeah, right. We know who is really pushing for this--phone companies who want to put VOIP providers out of business or at leaast bleed them financially. If nothing else, it's a scare tactic. "Not yet, Joe Consumer. You want to keep your land line in case of an emergency!" While I agree that VOIP companies should disclose their 911 abilities and should make moves towards getting 911 working, 120 days is an unreasonably short amount of time, and seems designed for failure with companies who haven't even started yet. How about we give them a year so they can put something reliable together instead of each company scrambling to hack it together before they're fined?
Let's not forget, VoIP *is* going over the Internet...
(Caller dials 911)
Caller: Help! Emergency! My baby's not breathing!
Operator: OMG!
Caller: Send help right away!
Operator: A/S/L?
I thought that
s p
The Coming Death of Cheap VoIP
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1812887,00.a
was pretty interesting. Dvorak is saying that the 911 problem is being exploited by the telcos who want to own voip. 911 is the thin end of the wedge.
So I use a VoIP PBX, I make calls all the time through my office over a VPN, can the FCC regulate PBX's this way too? and make them "figure out" where you are to route the 911 call appropriately?
What about the hosted PBX providers? Does this ruling apply to them as well? This will put such a huge anchor around the growing VoIP market as to kill it dead.
I forsee this killing VoIP-to-landline services in the United States. The big companies like Vonage and Time Warner will look at the expense to introduce proper service like this and agree that the cost of maintenance outweighs the profit potential.
Prepare for the cancellation of service notices from CEOs....
Cell phones did not support real 911 for quite a long time and people died then too. Just because we have a new technology (square peg) doen't mean we should try and make it fit within our exiting infrastructure (round hole). I would have preferred to see it required that providers EITHER make their service 911 aware OR put a warning label on bills, sign up forms and equipment that warns Joe Sixpack he may not be able to dial 911.
Anyone else bemused by Google and AdSense in ability to tell this is a "BAD NEWS" article about VOIP...
When I was in grad school I had exactly the same prjoect: writing a proposal to implement 911 on the Internet. I think I wrote something like using multicast, but I am not sure I knew what I was writing. :)
Anyway, I believe the technology has to support 911 and there is no reason that it couldn't be solved. But the problem is the 120 day limit. I would expect at least 2 years for this thing to become a standard.
So what does it mean, no VoIP for the two years?
Lets see last ad i saw specifcally said 'phone company' on it. Not 'commications company'..
When the consumer hears 'phone company' they should expect a certian level of safety/performance.
Seems to me they should be required to follow the same rules or be shut down totally. Or stop telling people they are A ( not THE ) phone company.
If they cant be required as you say, then change the laws to make them responsible.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Aren't Internet Service Providers better able to provide 911 services to their customers than VoIP providers? The whole concept of an overlay destroys the fundamental assumptions of 911 on the POTS. I say the government should require that residential ISPs provide 911 service to their customers. Since my ISP is Verizon (DSL) I'm already covered. :)
Non-telephone residential ISPs could simply contract out the services to the local telephone monopoly (the government could even set rates!)
I don't really LIKE this idea but I like it a LOT MORE than the current disaster.
Wonder if they're doing this to appease POTS campaign donators?
Does this give ISP a valid reason to choke off voip?
If 911 is now required to work, will they be afraid of being sued if they are down when someone calls 911?
My baby is dieing and the DNS is screwed up again...who do i sue?!?
If that story is true it must be heart wrenching to know that if you had simply kept a list of emergency telephone numbers (real local numbers like everyone did pre-911) that things would have turned out differently.
Note to self: The 911 system is based on technology working correctly, have a backup system.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
some Voip services imply that its just like your current phone.
The average person will expect it to be just like there phone.
This won't kill VoIP, but it might make it so they can't say it's just like a phone, or imply 911 service is just a reliable. And possible remind the consumer that phone lines are powered seperatly, were there router probably isn't.
Persoanlly, I see sevice like Skype doing away with long distance calls, but not the land line.
which is fine with me. I like hving a phone when power ges out, is easy for a 4 year old to operate and can be traced* when calling an emergency service.
* I do expect certian right regarding this issue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The vote came after testimony from people including a Florida woman who had her infant die after being unable to call 911 from her internet phone.
Doesn't she have a local police/ambulance/fire telephone number or neighbors who CAN dial 911?
That story just sounds fishy to me. Her baby died because she didn't know what to do in an emergency.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yes, it is really useful to tell a recording where you are! If you RTFA:
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
See, if she'd just *understood* it, would her baby have been immortal?
It doesn't matter whether she understood it. It doesn't matter if she took a risk, knowingly, and lost out on that risk.
What matters is that people signing up for primary phone lines that don't have 911 service is a bad idea. It's a step backward for our society.
Sometimes when an option is *really stupid* the government has to accept that people are stupid and make that option illegal.
And in this case, it isn't even that dumb of a choice for an individual. You think hey, if there's an emergency, I'll just ask my neighbour to call... how many emergencies require that I phone faster than I can get next door? The risk is very low for any one individual.
As a whole, though, society will have some members experience such an emergency, so society has to step in. That's all.
I know the fucking idiot won't read the fucking article, but I wish the fucking moderators would read the funcking article.
if you rely on one phone and it's VOIP and can't even think and realize that a fire alarm would trigger fire trucks to come with paramedics ... well, maybe you shouldn't perpetuate ...
What's next, soft fluffy pillows for people driving cars when they're too tired?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Frankly, I don't get the point of forcing them to offer the service - at least in Los Angeles. Every time I've had to call 911 in LA, I had to wait at least 15 minutes before an operator came on. Fortunately, I wasn't like, suffocating at the time.
Telephones are special devices.
A phone that connects by means of VoIP is a phone, first and most importantly. It is, among other things, what people pick up in a panic when they need help urgently.
A phone is not just a network device that generates a particular sort of traffic on the IP network. It is a telephone, and telephones are special.
I work with VoIP, and this is the key disconnect between "voice people" and "data people." Data people think VoIP phones are just network devices with some special performance requirements. Voice people know that voice is culturally significant in ways that other network services are not.
This is essence of the VoIP battle between Cisco on one side and Nortel/Alcatel/Avaya/etc on the other.
A another important emergency services question is how to deal with people here in Australia who, in a panic, dial "911" because they saw it on American television shows, when in fact the correct number here is "000."
It seems to me that a somewhat effective solution would be to "map" the 9-1-1 button sequence to the local emergency number (as programmed by user). This may be how some of the current VOIP/911 technology works...I do not know. This however alleviates the issue of non-residents (babysitters, houseguests, etc.) to still be able to dial the familiar 9-1-1 instead of having to post a disclaimer on your front door advising visitors that 911 service is not available and that they must use the local emergency number. This still would not solve the issue of people who are unable to give their address...but it would at least be a start.
To those who agree with the Chicago-Florida example from above, anyone who knows enough to set up and transport and re-setup a VOIP system should be responsible enough to find the local emergency number and program it appropriately. Maybe VOIP manufacturers could add "profiles" to the firmware, so that you could have as many predefined locations as its memory could hold and could switch between locations if you were to move or travel (as in previous example, the poster could program his local emergency number in Chicago and the one for the place he was staying in Florida).
Not that any of this is a permanent solution...geographic IP lookup in some way, shape, or form still needs to be implemented. I just don't think that a good, secure system can be implemented in 120 days.
OK...the dead baby thing smells like bullshit. Unless her nextdoor neighbor was a half a mile away or the EMS response is lightning quick (3-4 minutes), how is it the IP Telco's fault? Wasn't the consumer supposed to read and sign off on the e911 clause of their service agreement? I know I had to explicitly sign off on that (and I read what I signed).
OTOH, it sounds like the legislation itself is pretty balanced. VoIP providers have been pointing fingers at the LEC's for months. The LEC's owned the PSAP's, and wouldn't give the access numbers to the VoIP providers. The regulation seems to mandate cooperation between the two...and provide a mandate that consumers be able to update location information. That sounds fair to me.
The thing that concerns me is when someone from Lubbock, TX takes their ATA on vacation to Spokane, WA and has to call 911. What happens if they fail to update their location? Is it the VoIP provider's fault if the call doesn't get routed properly because the consumer didn't hold up their end of the bargain (like with the dead baby)? Will providers then be required to tack GPS locaters on their ATA's? That means that the consumer foots the bill, and loses another bit of privacy to regulation.
I may be overreacting, but our regulators have made boneheaded calls like this before (see: broadcast flag)...it's worth considering.
-Turkey
Maybe soon we can be taxes as much as I am on my home phone line too. Hopefully ISPs will be required to provide 100% uptime for all connections too because when I dial 911 I need 911 no matter how many times I'm reminded that its not the same on my IP phone. I'd also like to see federally mandated padding on all sharp corners in my house.
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." -Voltaire
What "we all know" is often wrong.
In any event, 911 and its predecessors have been around for quite some time now. The first 999 emergency call was made in Britain in 1937, the first 999 call in North America, in Winnepeg, in 1959, the first 911 call in the U.S. in 1968. The History of 911
You have be close to fifty years old to clearly remember a time when 911 did not exist.
You call 911 and get a busy tone...
Or you call 911 and get a recording that they're overwhelmed with calls at the time...
Or when you work at a 7-11 and a guy robs you at gunpoint and you call 911 and they say they're really busy and won't be there for 30 minutes... (happened to me a few years back)
My point??? I can see plenty of times the system has failed or people have died even when 911 service was available.
I'm from the UK, so please forgive the fact that I don't understand all the issues...
Couldn't the VOIP provider run a call centre covering the entire country and relay emergency calls as appropriate? You'll have to give details of where you are anyhow, what does it matter if the person you speak to is in the local area or not?
What's wrong with this idea?
Around here, you can plug a phone into ...let's say a typical apartment's... phone jack that has had service cancelled when the prior tenant moved out. You pick up the receiver, you just get silence, maybe a few random static clicking sounds or a faint AC ground-loop hum in the background. You try pressing *any* button, you still only get silence. Period. No service means just that. No service.
There's a great opportunity here people.
Imagine if GM's OnStar worked a deal with VoIP companies. Using an IP address to rough geographical location, and customer records, 911 could be routed to GM's OnStar office. The GM OnStar service already has live operators able to look at information and then call the appropriate 911 facility.
Now, imagine setting this up yourself. You'll need a call center, a data tie in to the VoIP provider, a few good databases (geographic IP address, 911/emergency contact #s around the country, etc.), bandwidth, and phone lines (or better yet, VoIP lines, w/some backup trunks).
There's a great opportunity for someone to step up and place themselves in between VoIP and 911, and charge a small service fee for the service.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
There was a large card that came with my SIP that said "DOES NOT SUPPORT 911 SERVICE" in big red.
If that's the cost of avoiding paying Verizon and various other cartels a total of 50+ dollars a month, so be it.
What if the customer had to register the MAC Address of their VOIP adapter (or router) with their provider and gave the address 911 should respond to. Lots of people use VoIP as a substitute for their regular phone line so their location does not change realative to this. When they make a 911 call, the VOIP provider would send this address to the dispatch center as the location of the caller.
This address would be changable either by calling the VoIP provider or can be changed online. The customer would be responsible for keeping the address up to date if their location changes.
If they make a 911 call and the router isn't at the location they have listed and they don't tell the operator their real location otherwise, they would have no one to blame but themselves. Their VoIP provider isn't psycic as to where they are.
if you think you have to have any savy at all to use VoIP.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They seem to have forgotten that VOIP can be used from any country in the world. With GSM, if you are visiting another country an emergency call is routed to the local (where the cell is located) emergency operator. Have they considered how this will work with VOIP? If a visitor to the US needs to make an emergency call on VOIP or if a US citizen in another country wants to make a 911 call, they do not want to be routed to their 'home' emergency operator but to the emergency operator local to where they are.
Wish I had mod-points..this about the only poster that I've seen actually understand the issue before posting!
The VOIP service can connect you to any telephone line in the world, so there no reason they can't connect you to a local 911 dispatch service.
The point you seem to be missing is that, as well as being able to connect TO any phone line in the world, you can connect FROM any internet connection in the world. So, when you take your laptop with you to a different city, how will the VOIP provider know not to route the 911 call to your home town's emergency services, but to Vacationville's services?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Do the voip providers not inform their subscribers that they do not have 911 access? If they don't, then I can see a problem, but I'm pretty sure they do. In which case, last I checked, the Bell's still drop off a phone book at just about every house, so a person could use that to look up an actual emergency number beforehand to keep by the phone just in case. If they don't have a phone book, they must have internet access if they're using voip, so why not use that to look up an emergency number? The people who are at risk are the ones who haven't taken any precautionary steps. It's a shame that people have died as a result of not being able to call 911, but there are ways to get the same thing done if only they would have checked beforehand.
Last two times I've lost dialtone it's taken days to get it back up. They simply don't work on the problem after hours 'cause it costs them overtime. The days when the phone company rushes to fix a problem are long gone.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Time for Google to unveil their new "Where Am I?" service.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
We all pay (through our taxes) for Fire, Police and emergency services. For these services to be effective they need people to be able to dial 911 as easily as possible.
And as VoIP companies do more and more marketing to "non-tech" folks, they are trying to show how they are as good as Ma Bell, just cheaper. If people have to have their old landline for 911, it doesn't make it worth the switch.
I was thinking about getting Vonage, but once I realized that the 911 service was a little lackluster, I figured it wasn't worth the savings.
CRTC Decision on 9-1-1 Emergency Services for VoIP Service Providers
"Call me a sick-o, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this story about the woman from Florida is a falsification on some levels, I would like proof that she has no access to a cellular phone, that she is too far to a payphone, and has no neighbors nor passers-by on her street. Come on, this just smells like a set-up!"
Someone KILLED A CHILD TO SETUP A VOIP COMPANY!!!!
Look at what you wrote. Yes that is just sick.
The very idea that in a medical emergency a mother should be running around to find a stranger on the street is mind numbing!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
We all know who pushed this through with such speed. Can you imagine if the tables were turned? SBC/VZ would be howling so loud that the our friends across the pond would be screaming at us to keep the noise down. Of course, the ILEC's have been so cooperative and supportive in interconnnecting E911 systems with VOIP providers. The finest government money can buy, I hope to someday be able to afford some myself.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I can personally verify that 911 is useless if not dangerous. Because the response time can be in excess of 30 minutes after reporting a violent crime, it leaves a false sense of security.
I suggest everyone program the local police, fire, and ambulance number into their cell phones. I you have a home phone, print out the numbers and stick clear packing tape over it and on the base of the phone.
Do NOT use 911. It's more then a joke...it's fucking down right dangerous.
Life is not for the lazy.
It'll be pretty simple:
/24 subnet.
/24 subnet, you're asked once again for location information.
/24 subnet, calls to 911 are prefaced with "You are being directed to 911 operations at 'foo'. Press zero if you are not located here."
1) The first time you make an outgoing call, you are asked to enter the zip code or city/state (voice recognition) you're located in. That information is tied to your phone, and your
2) The first time you make an outgoing call on a new
3) If many users have different locations from the same
I'm a packet hacker type, and I know all about IP geolocation databases, but they're the wrong approach. I'm sitting here in Vancouver right now and all my traffic comes from either Santa Clara (where my home network is) or New Jersey (where my company network links live). If you want to know which 911 to give me -- *ask*.
That the result will be a very accurate geolocation database is just gravy.
Note, I'm not saying this is how things _might_ be solved. I can imagine geolocation as a last ditch bonus just in case. But short of putting a cell transponder w/ GPS in every VoIP device -- something we can't even get in cells -- utterly silent 911 tracing ain't happening.
--Dan
I am currently in France, but I'm connecting to my italian provider in Italy. My IP is italian, but i'm 1100 Km far away from Italy.
What technology can route my call to the french "911"? Should we expect GPS into laptops soon ?
-- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
I remember when the back and inside cover of every phone book had the number to the local police, fire, and hospital (back in the phone monopoly days)
911 is great for a visitor but if you live in a community, it is your duty to know when your trash is picked up, the status quo of the community, and appropriate telephone numbers for whatever services (septic pumps, fire department if you live somewhere where your burn trash, etc...).
Every family with small children know the name of their pediatrician, the location of the office, and the phone number of the office.
True Story:
2 guys unloading goods off a truck at a restaurant where I worked. 1 guy holds the unloading ramp waving to the driver to back up. The driver guns the gas, the truck is in reverse, the ramp hits the back door and the guy holding the ramp gets a finger cut off.
The kids who witness this freak out, I keep my cool. I pickup his finger (which was grey in color and kind of flat) and put it in ice, call 911 and monitor the time.
There is a fire house less than 2 miles away from us so I figure that it shouldn't take that long.
After 15 minutes, I call again.
27 minutes after the first call, they arrive.
A police dispatcher will tell you that calling their desk will result in a faster response time anyway.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
It's one of the oldest tricks in the book--all the landline dialtone providers have been looking for some way to steer people away from thess less expensive VOIP alternatives, so they're highlighting all these horror stories just to scare people away.
For once I would like to see a balanced news story, that shows both sides, like the cost of 911 service, and the technical impossibility for VOIP providers. If I plug my SIP device into a broadband router in a foreign country, will 911 respond? No. Therefore, why should I pay?
--
Spread the Seeds of the Organic Rebellion.
The crux of this issue is not 911 service its Enhanced 911 (E-911) service.
ANI (Automatic Number Identification) the PSAP gets the number your dialing from and ALI (Automatic Location Identification) the PSAP gets your physical location, helpful if you dial 911 and pass out or you're freaking out because you have a non-breathing infant in your hands.
As I understand the current state of some VoIP providers, they will route a call to hit the local number of the PSAP (i.e., the 10 digit number not the 911 tandem trunks) Which will provide neither ANI or ALI and in most cases could delay the emrgency response.
RBOCs provide E-911 ANI and ALI on POTS lines via the 911 Tandem to the PSAP. They maintain datasbases with this information to provide to the PSAP specifically for this reason. The RBOCs in fact own these databases and other carriers must develop arrangements with the RBOCs to provide this service to the PSAP. Then they have to pay for access to the 911 Tandem Switch owned by the RBOC. Then they are responsible for maintaining the database etc.
I did this with a CLEC for one customer and it took almost a year to resolve the bureaucratic issues and get the system actually working. That was one CLEC one RBOC. Imagine having to do this across the country.
The concept of providing E-911 in 120 days is laughable. It will take 120 days to get the project plan ironed out. 120 months is more reasonable.
BTW cellphones aren't much better even with GPS because of the legacy technology in most of the PSAPs. Usually the best they can get is the tower you're getting your signal from.
Lastly, I challenge anyone to think about all this when something requiring a 911 call is going on around you. In a panic situation most people will pick up the nearest device and call not thinking about the particulars.
Having small children and using VoIP as a replacement to POTS is lunacy
Telecom Guy
I have Vonage VOIP.
Vonage makes it abundantly clear that you must activate 911 Service by providing address information. You'd have to be an absolute idiot to miss this. It's prominently displayed in red at the top of your account dashboard when you log into the site. A glaring red insert is in the box with your phone adapter right on top. It's all over their website for new customers, and everywhere in their FAQs.
I activated my 911 service as soon as I signed up, 'cause it was made imminently clear to me that I needed to do so. By the time my adapter arrived, my 911 service was in place.
If you're too damn stupid to activat the service, I just see it as evolution in action. Hopefully you were too damn dumb to breed yet too.
People are just used to having instant access to emergency response and having it at a single number on any phone anywhere. That is perhaps not how it should be, but it's how it is. I mean when I was in a car accident as soon as I was undazed, the first thing I did was call 911. I didn't even think about it, just grabbed my cell and called, it was just natural.
So I can certianly see why they want to force this on VoIP providers. From their point of view, if it works like a phone and interfaces with the PSTN, it IS a phone and thus needs to work with 911 as any other phone does.
I see this as a somewhat valid concern. When you get down to it, we want VoIP to take over. The switched telephone network is horribly inefficient. Well if we truly want it to take over and be everywhere, emergency access is a must. You can't tell people that they should switch to the new system without it.
Also one number has a lot of good reasons too. I've had to call 911 to assist people when I was not in my home town. There is no way I'll be able to memorize the numbers for the police, fire and paramedics in a place I'm visiting in a reasonable amount of time. So the single number allows visitors to get emergency help, without having to first locate a local that hopefully knows the right number to call.
how ignorant some people can be. Like many other people have said in this thread, when you sign up - it is clear that you have to give them your information for 911 access. It is absolutely imperative that the VoIP Providers get tied in with the traditional E-911 systems. And as far as the reference to Vonage being sued in the state of Texas - I'm from Texas and I use Vonage, they made it perfectly clear. People need to learn to read. Better yet, learn how this technology works.
Since people are going to have to update their locations themselves, I'm sure now that operators are going to be required to ask "Are you currently at the location that this phone is listed for" as a part of their answer routine.
...and firmware such that whenever you dial 911, it initially rings an automatic call center and transmits the GPS coordinates to the backend systems at the call center which automatically forward the call to the appropriate local 911 PSAP and include the GPS coordinates in the "ANI/ALI" stream in lieu of textual street address like the new cellphone systems are supposed to provide.
The only problem is the existing load of end-user voip phones already out there in service that will be made forceably obsolete immediately and all users will have to repurchase your end-user hardware. I say this to the early adopters of VoIP: Tough sh*t. Anytime you try to "blaze a pioneer trail" in the technology world, you gamble on your investment in hardware a few times until robust standards emerge.
It makes sense for the contracts and installation of VoIP to be set up to auto-generate your location information and give you 911 unless you move a phone to another connection without changing your service area / informing the VoIP provider. GPS, as much as the tin foil hats will argue privacy violations (and be moderately correct), would be a GREAT idea for phones which are meant to be semi-mobile. But then again, can't someone with the proper equipment triangulate your position with a cell phone anyway?
... as long as the ILECs aren't allowed to rape VoIP providers in E911 connection charges.
I had reason to call 911 about a year ago on my Vonage line, I had already configured it for 911 as soon as that service was available in my area, and the PSAP they transferred to didn't have my given address and number in their system automatically. That's complete horseshit, Vonage knows my address not only because I spec'd it in the 911 setup but because they successfully send me bills.
They need to be able to get to the point where I call 911, connect somewhere, and they have my configured address and # and can connect me to my local precinct, fire house, what not without me knowing where they are. My local PD has a hotline from 911, and dialing the published # can lead to lots of ringing, signifying nothing. If you don't have access to the hotlines, as an 'emergency' provider, you're worthless.
And yeah, I want my VoIP to be a complete solo-line replacement for Verizon. They just have to do whatever needs to be done to get there, if it involves suing the ILECs for access, hiring lobbyists, selling small childrens' hearts to Satanists, whatever.
Just like the Vontage commerical - people do stupid things.
And one of them is depending on VoIP as an emergency communication mean.
I have a Glock 23 and 3 boxes of ammo. Screw 911. There is no problem that cannot be solved by the use of gratuitous violence. >:)
How about the VoIP guys, when receiving a 911 call request a location, record it, and pass it down the line to 911?
...you could have driven the guy and his finger-on-ice to the hospital yourself.
If I can't make a 911 call from my cell phone due to a dead battery, can I sue Motorola for not making a battery that lasts longer (forever)? I wonder if any of the VoIP providers provide information stating that land lines without service can still be used for 911?
all too often i see on the news how some 911 operators botched a call into them anyway. i don't see the feds going after them to even handle them correctly. what's the sense of dialing 911 if they can't help you?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
If she can afford broadband and a VoIP phone service, she can afford a mobile phone. If she's too stupid or feckless to do so, or to *go and find a payphone*, then she is just plain unfit to raise a child.
This is just typical of the bullshit that seems to be coming out of America as it finally spirals into decay. "Waaah, my child died because phones are difficult to use! It's not my fault! I'm suing! Waaaah"
The FCC, for those whose attention spans collapsed before they finished reading the article, ordered the companies to ensure that mobile VOIP users can update their location and callback numbers. No big databases needed. Just ask the phone where it is and route the call to the right 911 center. (User update of the new area code and exchange might do the trick.)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Why the urgency ? In practice if you can call 911 that doesn't mean it will always save your life, as this link shows.
I wonder..why the urgency and the short term (by industrial standards) to some phone companies, but I guess much less urgency to fix the emergency services that should _come_ after calling ?
Could it be that if you have some lobbist among the lawmakers they'll become more sensible ? Could it be that some phone companies are highly annoyed by VOIP ?.....guess one needs a lobbist for ambulances, but who's going to lobby for every Joe and Jane out there ?
It's an irony there's much attention on the 911 phone number but little attention to what 911 is all about..all of that after 9/11. But hey, missile defense and all that yadda yadda yadda.
It's not possible for VOIP to provide the service guarantees of wired phone lines, if nothing else because they don't come with a dedicated pair of wires going back to an exchange with its own power supply. I am simply amazed that VOIP has spread as quickly as it has. I mean, who the hell expects their internet service to stay up 24/7?
If you get VOIP service, you have to know that the low price comes with lower reliability and few if any of the traditional safeguards of wired or even cellular phones.
Note to all the people nay-saying this legislation:
The only reason we have 911 IN THE FIRST PLACE is because telcos were forced to provide it (sometime before you were born) in a consistent manner. This is no different. It's a good law, and they are making every effort to implement in a fair way.
If some of you would bother to RTFA you would see that VOIP that is not tied to a physical address is NOT being required to somehow come up the physical address that may be technically (near) impossible, but only to provide the capability to register a location associated with the service.
It's a completely reasonable, useful, desirable law, something which the VOIP providers themselves recognize. (unlike the slashdot unwashed masses who fancy themselves libertarians because their heretofore sheltered pampered existence combined with Aspergers syndrome and the attendant inability to have empathy for others makes them completely oblivious to the real world).
Some of the voip providers WANT this legislation, specifically the part that forces the telcos to cooperate in making the 911 service available.
This is likely because many VOIP providers became VOIP providers not purely out of greed, but because they were inspired in the first place by the idea of providing a valuable service to other people and being rewarded for it. They want the legislation, because it means no one VOIP provider will be able to cheat and win in the market place by avoiding their social responsibility.
In case anyone thinks I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I'm not -- in fact I would be entirely comfortable with some of these jackasses whose attitudes show no regard for others and/or for the public good being put against a wall and shot in the head. I mean why not -- why shouldn't the people who believe society should be structured to work together for the good of all act together to exterminate those who believe in law-of-the-jungle or anarchy or libertarianism or whatever euphemism for pure selfishness is in vogue? It's completely congruent with both sets of values, so long as you equate "believing in every man for himself" with putting oneself outside of society. If you deny society, society ought no longer be bound to protect you, offer you any benefits, or even regard you as a person whose life should be preserved.
If they cant compete with my proposed rules and go out of business, good riddens.
Even if it kills the entire VoIP industry as analog POTS, run by the orginal Bell System, are good enough for anyone.
Anything more is just a waste.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's what the URG(ent) flag of IP packets is for. 911 operators can send help through the link, provided they set the URG flags to 1.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I don't know much about residential voip, and only a little bit about using it in the workplace, but the few setups I have seen all require an adapter to plug your handset into the broadband connection. What about GPS enabling the phone adapter? Then piggyback location info into the call. Maybe even limit location data to 911 calls only, so it can't be snooped or abused on regular calls. Sure it would add cost and 120 days is obviously to soon to replace even a fraction of the adapters, but it would give pinpoint location regardless of whether you moved or took your phone on vacation or whatever. Is it feasible?
When I switched to VoIP I thought the same thing: "even if 911 doesn't work, I'll just dial the number for the police station or fire station or whatever." So I contacted the local police station and asked what the # was for calling in an emergency. They said: "911" ... no matter how many agencies I asked about calling the emergency center or police station directly, they all said: "no, direct calling has been phased out... you have to call 911." Calling a police station directly means you are calling about something non-critical and will be put on hold or get a machine.
I don't know how widespread this problem is, but the "direct calling" idea is no longer an option in some locations. Sad, really.
So, Vonage connected her to a non-emergency number that is not answered 24/7. Not a good idea. I know that in some cities (such as Denver, where I live), there is no emergency number that is widely published. I can't look one up; 911 is the only number the police provide.
Trivial but costly.
"Not yet, Joe Consumer. You want to keep your land line in case of an emergency!"
Hell yes. Or at least a cellphone. I could see getting VOIP as a second or third line but I wouldn't dream of getting it as my only phone service.
Even if they DID provide 911 I sure wouldn't want to depend on my ISP to be able to call anyone, let alone emergency services. For a while my honme Internet service would go down on Fridays regular as clockwork. No thanks, a VOIP-only house isn't in my plans.
My final thought on today's events: Amidst all the emotionally heart-wrenching anecdotes about failed Vonage 911 calls, no one ever mentioned the failures of traditional carrier emergency response services. I'm forced to wonder what would have happened if the FCC had paraded the spouses and parents of those who died when 911 failed on traditional wireline and wireless networks? I guess that wouldn't be acceptable - that might scare consumers of traditional telecom services and antagonize the traditional communications power structure. Let's bully the new weak kids in town but not draw attention to current emergency response failures by those that are capable of fighting back.
Couldn't agree more. This order is just the stepping stone to full regulation of VOIP inlcuding lawful intercept (CALEA) in order to kill it on behalf of the BOCs.This is EXACTLY the answer. I live in Texas and I've been watching the Texas case. The incumbent phone companies have never revealed the actual phone number that "911" is routed to in each area, since it wouldn't have provided a benefit and would have allowed various forms of sabotage and pranks. Now that VOIP are trying to compete, they do need to know the numbers, but the incumbents are trying to stifle competition by not playing ball. This ruling is a smack down on the old phonecos, not the VOIP companies.
But shouldn't VOIP users if they are technically savvy to use VOIP also be responsible and be sure that they can dial (ie have phone number handy) an emergency service?
I'm sorry, but I can't parse that sentence. No matter how I try, it seems to be saying something about users being technically savvy. I know that can't be right, so there MUST be something wrong with the way I'm reading it.
Why not integrate a GPS reciever into the phone? You can be GPS recievers for under $30 retail. This could automatically forward your location to your VOIP provider AND 911 services.
A bit more money, but you'll still save in the long run.
Gabe
The problem is that if there's a power cut, all the mains-powered phones stop working. However, dumb phones are powered from the phone line, and remain operative. (I once spent some time in a holiday house with no electricity at all, except for the telephone.)
You probably don't want to train people to rely on unreliable devices like computers for emergencies --- you want to train them than when they need to call emergency services, get a real phone.
Your VOIP provider cannot see your mac address.
MAC's (as most know them) are used on ethernet which is a local network.
Once your packets leave your Lan the mac address is irrelevant and should be discarded.
Now some VOIP systems might use the same address as some sort of an identifier, but to do so they must send it over TCP/IP.
I'd like to see the government try to advance any nationwide infrastructure in 120 days. If they truly wanted to migrate to this new technology, they would be working with the VOIP providers, instead of threatening to shut down their business in 120 days.
Land lines will be cost effective for as long as the telcos can lobby against competing technologies. We'd still be renting blocky soviet era handsets from them, had it not been for anti-monopoly laws.
I have vonage too, and to sign up for the 911, I had to give my address, and wait till they 'validated' the address, meaning I suppose they can enter it in google maps and find a clear path to my address... Legibility.
This service is not 2 years old, more like 6 months old I think. At least here in Canada, it should work flawlessly, although I havent used it
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Have each vonage user registesr with their address and connect the call to the local 911 office. I know it might not be as easy as it sounds but it seems completely doable to me.
Not sure if anyone's pointed out that, even if you properly set up Vonage's 911 service, their terms of service clearly state that you WON'T be connected to the same 911 center as a landline or cell phone...
my emphasis...
"This? I can make a hat, I can make a brooch, I can make a pterodactyl..."
they don't HAVE a directory of each zip code's appropriate 911 center. The phone companies are fighting them by not giving them this info.
/. I remember someone said each 911 point-of-presence has an actual NPA-NXXX (normal 7-digit number) that SBC etc could just f**king make available to all VOIP providers and this would all be over already. The stupid "federal regulators" should give the damn Bells a deadline and if they don't open up the 911 system they should be sued out of business by every VOIP company.
EXACTLY.
Last time this came up on
Oh, but they won't do that because they're on the Bells' payroll! Oops! I mean "campaign contribution list." F**king weasels.
Sprint's 911 doesn't work. I've had to call it twice in the last two years (lucky me), and wasn't connected to the 911 operator. I ended up having the operator call the police directly (!)
Someone should get on Sprint's back about this too.
Is it Voip's fault that her babied died or is it her fault for buying a phone service without 911 ?
I agree that VOIP should support 911. Its a good thing but in reality VOIP is still unreliable even with 911.
If the power goes out, VOIP goes out... and so does VOIP with 911. So in a real emergency, VOIP should not be relied on. It is unreliable. Voip service could go down, the broadband pipe may be done... Power may go out...
It is best to have VOIP with a cell phone. Anyone with just a VOIP line is asking for trouble in any real emergency.
It's sad to say, but her baby's death is partially her own fault for relying on an unreliable phone service. VOIP is great but i would never rely on it soley until we can address power outages, and network stability.... The 911 issue is probably the easiest problem with VOIP to fix.
Just because phones were the most convenient service to piggyback emergency services onto doesn't mean that'll perpetually be the case. Especially in cities, in makes no sense for everyone to have their own emergency contact service; if there were just some call boxes in my apartment complex, enough so that it wouldn't take more than a minute to get to one, that'd be perfectly fine.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
I don't want to be perceived as being on the phone companies' side, but it wouldn't take too long to assemble a list of 911 call centers. I have a kiln which tends to attract attention during firings (8' plume of flame from the chimney during the peak of firing). After my first firing (the fire department showed up) I learned to call the 911 center about week before the firing, and then again when the firing starts to get dramatic (it lasts 5 days BTW) to let them know that everything is normal at my address if they happen to get calls. They put a note up at the center there and grumpy firemen/cops don't show up at 2:00 am anymore (*). I got their non-emergency number by calling the fire department's non-emergency number to get the phone number of the 911 call center covering my address. Although it would be way better if the phone companies would just turn over the info, it isn't impossible for the VOIP companies to compile the information independently.
... I invite them down to the work pit for coffee or tea and peek at the inferno. ;-)
(*) On a side note, I have learned that there are people who want to be helpful, which makes me feel good that the world isn't all bad. Every firing I get some early morning commuters rushing down the driveway blowing their horns, jumping out and yelling "your house is on fire!! -- your house is on fire!!"
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
All this advanced technology they have.. allowing you to add numbers, modify voice mail, get voicemail EMAILS sent to you, etc, and they can't do something as fucking simple as block "anonymous" callers. What a joke. That's like NASA going, "Sorry kid, we have no idea how to fix the chain on your bike... but we CAN send people into space and sustain life for weeks on end!!"
It's a messy solution, but if you look at the insurance money coming back, might actually gain you a nickel. Especially if there's multiple parties to pin the blame on!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Had I not posted in this discussion already, I would've modded you up.
From any web browser (or even telnet) connected to the Internet, I should be able to reach some live dispatcher that can figure out (by talking to me) where I am and connect me to the local 911 dispatcher (or 112, or 999, or wherever I am in the world). And I should be connected within 10 seconds, not counting network latency. I agree: with the unversality of the Internet, this should be a priority.
Know what? I hope nobody'll be unable to reach 911 when somebody (like me) rapes you or that michrech guy anally.
Hmmm... sounds like a great Hentai game.
Subject: 911 DIALING NOT YET ACTIVATED-IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ
Account Number: **********
Telephone Number: 1-(***)-***-****
NAME
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE ZIP
Dear NAME,
Thank you for requesting 911 Dialing for phone number 1-(***)-***-****. Please read the following information carefully.
DIALING 911 IS NOT YET ACTIVATED ON YOUR PHONE LINE. THIS PROCESS MAY TAKE SEVERAL DAYS. DO NOT DIAL 911 FROM THIS PHONE LINE UNTIL YOU GET A CONFIRMATION EMAIL FROM US.
Please review these steps to better understand how Vonage 's Dialing 911 feature works.
- Using the information you provided, we will map your address and telephone number to your area's nearest Public Safety Answering Point ("PSAP").
- This process will be completed within several days.
- We will email you a CONFIRMATION LETTER as soon as the 911 Dialing feature has been activated for 1-(***)-***-****. (Note that if you have multiple Vonage numbers you MUST activate 911 Dialing for each number separately.)
- When you dial 911 from your Vonage phone, your call is routed from the Vonage network over the Public Switch Telephone Network ("PSTN") to your PSAP's general number, where a trained professional will provide you with assistance.
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT 911 DIALING IS DIFFERENT THAN TRADITIONAL 911. We encourage you to login to your Vonage account and click on Features in your Account Dashboard to learn more.
Please contact us by:
Email: customercare@vonage.com
Toll Free Phone: 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357)
Fax: 1732-333-1353
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Thank You.
Vonage Customer Care
------------------
When you follow the instructions that I put in bold, you get their 911 FAQ. I don't want to list all of them in a post(I'll put a link at the bottom for the interested), but the FAQ's that seem to be relevant are:
Do I need to test 911 Dialing?
You do not need to test 911 dialing. If you have received an email confirmation from Vonage stating that your 911 dialing has been activated, then 911 dialing will work should you ever need it. If you do choose to test 911 Dialing, please test it only one time. When you call, you must inform the emergency response personnel that it is not an emergency and that you are testing your alternative emergency service to make sure it's working. If they ask why you are testing the system, explain that you are using an Internet phone service that operates differently than the traditional phone company. If the PSAP operator tells you to dial another number, please inform Vonage Customer Care at 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357) or 1-732-650-6699.
The state of Minnesota encourages Minnesota residents to test Vonage 911 Dialing once.
How is this different from dialing 911 on a regular landline?
Vonage routes your call to the Public Service Answering Point (PSAP), which provides emergency services in your area. The appropriate PSAP is determined by the physical address you supplied when you configured 911 on your web account. Therefore, if we do not have the correct address, your call cannot be routed to the corresponding PSAP for your area. Another difference between Vonage 911 Dialing service and traditional 911 service is that the Vonage call will be routed to the PSAP's general access line, which is different from the 911 Emergency Response Center. You will need to state the nature of your emergency promptly and clearly, including your
I had an emergency just last week while working on my computer, so I quickly typed 911 in my browser and the damn thing DIDN'T WORK !!!11111
FCC must step in to put a stop to all this. I have to be able to type 911 everywhere there is a numeric keyboard, and it should work.
But, what happens when my VOIP phone with a New York number is plugged into the broadband router of an internet cafe in Bangladesh, and I dial 911? There are many cases where 911 info is wildly incorrect.
--
Store Wars: Spread the Seeds of the Organic Rebellion.
I don't think this is about public safety. It's about the government knowing where you are. Sure there's some benefit; you can't rob people of their freedom without giving them the perception of security in return, but they've made it so they can pinpoint your location.
...and the first thing I can think of is that it makes it easier for them to track us.
And what does that give us? In 1982 my Granddad's barn burnt down. There was no street address (we lived on a dirt road), no 911 service, and the nearest fire department was 20 miles away. We called the fire department and it took them half an hour to show up.
Sixteen years later, on the same dirt road, my cousin's house caught fire. By this time we had 911 and the county had named the road after my Grandad and put up a sign. Guess what? The fire department was still 20 miles away, and it still took them half an hour to get there.
When my Aunt called 911 they knew the address immediately, but the one minute saved by that was wasted because the 911 dispatcher still had to contact the fire department.
The same issue holds true when reporting a crime. When there's a guy in your house with his mind set on killing you and raping your wife, will he kindly wait for you to call 911 and then sip tea until the cops show up?
Old people who've fallen and can't talk or get up.....ok, there's one good use of the 911 system.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the safety net 911 provides is obviously limited, and the importance and priority that our government places on it is grossly out of proportion to the benefit it provides.
So I have to ask why....
The second thing I think of is that it gives people a false sense of security so they'll give up their guns and forget what it's like to take responsibility for themselves.
That makes it relatively simple for us to be controlled by the government. What we need to do to stop this madness is for men to act like men and be brave enough to protect ourselves, our families, and our neighbors. All the prissy little men running around in their sweaters and minivans are ruining the country for the rest of us.
breathe....stop ranting....breathe...ok.
I have VOIP service. My 911 is first aid training, a phone to call an ambulance (they have a direct line you know), and a fair assortment of firearms to knock the sorry life out of the b**tard who may be trying to hurt my family and/or take my stuff.
I also have mother, so I don't need the government to provide a substitute.
...or you just use your cell phone with E911 for emergency calls. I have Packet8. I know I have to pay extra for 911 service, I know the local police/fire number, I'm fine with that. 911 is not magical anyway; I've called 911 dozens of times in different places I've lived. It sucks. Rude people, bad wait times, don't respond.
I've seen many houses where a portable phone or a number of portable phones were the only telephones in the house. This is surely a danger to the occupants when the power goes out, right? Isn't this just a product of our reliance on new technology? Can't get cash out of ATMs, can't drive out of an area without entering uncontrolled intersections, perishable food goes bad, can't read slashdot?
Corporate Interests have persuaded this commission, not unlike other acts that have been passed over the past year.
This has absolutely *nothing* to do with providing better emergency services.
Keep in mind that Cell Phone companies were given several years to provide a similar service. (In fact, let's not get into facts, google for me).
The FCC just handed out a goodbye order to many companies after a good lobbying effort by our RBOCs. In AOL lingo, Goodbye.
Secondly, no, that isn't the number they're talking about. They're talking about the 'real' phone number, the XXX-XXXX phone numer, that 911 is an alias for, not the non-emergency number. Calling it is exactly like calling 911 from the right place. It's like how 411 is an alias for 555-1212.
Those numbers are 'secret', presumable so people in Florida can't prank call 911 in California.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So Broadvoice will have to put a GPS in my pocketPC since I use SJphone with it and them to make calls from any wireless location.
Hmm, and I guess when I use asterisk with it and link in my phone from work, they'll need to somehow discover my location.
thanks fcc- you guys make laws reel gude!
Am I missing something? When did the FCC gain juridictiction over net companies? They can certainly regulate telcos, but VoIP providers?
Not that it matters because the VoIP companies were already hashing out deals with the telcos (the real culprits who were holding e911 hostage with high fees to punish competitors). E911 is a good thing, but this seems like a stretch of the FCCs regulatory power. 1984, we get closer every day.
Who will get stuck with a 911 service they can't even use! e.g. in the UK it should be 999, or as in most European countries, 112 (the international emergency number).
Sounds to me like they already specified that it's acceptable to require the customer to update his current location on a web site, when traveling. So all the providers really have to do is figure out how to do 911 routing nationwide, and the onus is on the customer to keep them informed about which city to call.
Still though, it will be a hardship for some of these companies. I wonder if there is a loophole for the "wholesale" services, which provide only some services but aren't so end-user focused like Vonage et al. I was looking forward to getting my Asterisk tied in with one of those, and paying a low rate by the minute instead of one of those more expensive all-you-can-talk services.
Anyway even if you don't pay for a phone line, but you also don't have it removed, it's required to function for 911 calls, right? So Asterisk can be configured to route 911 calls to the landline and everything else via your favorite VOIP provider. I just hope all the cheap ones aren't forced out of business because of this damned government meddling. Really, anybody with a brain ought to know better than to expect 911 over VOIP anyway, and have a backup, like a land line or a cell phone or a nearby pay phone. Again, even cell phones without service being paid for, are still required to work for 911, and so there are those charities that collect old cell phones and give them to poor people.
I mean they could keep going, and require that every amateur radio repeater have an autopatch that must work for 911, without any kind of password. And if you have OnStar in your car, even if you quit paying for it you still have to be able to get through to 911 via that method. And if you dial 911 on a 2-way pager, or send to 911 on any instant messaging system, or email 911@yourisp.com, they have to message you back "what is the nature of your emergency?" And an Iridium phone must always be able to dial 911, regardless whether satellites are available or not, and even if you are calling from Zimbabwe. Heck every telephone pole could be required to have an emergency phone installed, with a little blue light to show you the way.
>The FCC order, thankfully, also *requires* the telcos to allow access to them.
The order, unfortunately, does not specify *when* or *at what price*. The press release also says that the incumbent phone companies are required to provide access to any requesting "telecommunications carrier".
Any incumbent carrier willing to place market control above public safety can now say
1. "You're an internet service provider, not a telecommunications carrier".
2. "Oh, you are? We'll wire you in. It's really difficult technically, so it will take 180 days. You only have 120? Sucks being you."
3. "Oh, you've got a court order? We'll wire you in. Here's our internal cost study that proves that 911 interconnect costs $15 per month per subscriber. That wipes out your entire revenue? Sucks being you."
I have been using VoIP for over a year at home, and I enjoy the technology. I run it over my cable modem. Comparing how reliable my cable service is, vs how reliable my POTS line is; I knew that I needed to keep a minimum POTS line active, just in case.
The device that I use is called a Sipura 3000 analog adapter. It allows my cordless phone system to plug into ethernet for VoIP. Another nice feature is that I can plug my POTS line in to it as well.
I have programmed the device to route 411 and 911 calls made from my cordless phones on to the POTS line instead of the VoIP line. That gives me full, reliable 911 service without having to inform my guests that some phones are for dialing, and other phones are for 911. Every phone can reach 911.
Another nice feature of this system is that it also routes all calls to the POTS line in the event of 1) VoIP service outage or 2) general power outage.
There are also programmable features for routing specific calls to specific gateways based on charateristics that you define. Gateway 0 is for POTS, gateways 1-3 (there are more than 2, can't remember the upper limit) are for VoIP services.
If your VoIP provider allows BYOD, it is definitally worth checking out.
btw: the TX case in this mess is interesting. I was in Houston on business when it happened. The customer in question was interviewed on the news. The customer claimed that he had no knowledge that Vonage did not handle 911. Seeing all the warnings that Vonage give you, it would actually take some effort to ignore the warnings. No sympathy.
I forget what electric car it was... but one of the early electric cars had a catalytic converter on it.... very small, unused.... but had to follow a stupid law....
just like CARB rules where the gas tank is considered an emissions part now....
nikotel is offering voip in combination with 911. you just have to keep your old land line and connect both (cable & phone) to the same adapter. but there service is cheaper than others so it does not really hurt that you keep both. at least a good idea.
That's what I thought too, until I read up on how 911 service works. It's completely automated and based on telephone trunk switching. They can shut down a call center and reroute all the calls from the affected area to the next nearest call center, this won't work if you use the NPA number. Basically you have to hook into 911 at the switch level and it's not designed to work from a remote exchange (like my case where my POP is about 12 miles and 3 cities from my residence). That's the reason that they don't even give the emergency call center their NPA number.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Suppose some major worm takes down a large part of the internet's infrastructure. Suppose this happens by discovering a flaw in CISCOs.
How are backbone operators supposed to tell one another once VoIP has replaced existing dialtone phone services? Smoke signals, anyone?
Not to speak of non-functional emergency calls in such situations anyway.
We have had major windows worm related breakdowns of the internet already. Do we really want people to die from this?
I seem to remember phones having some sort of feature that allowed programming in numbers. They had buttons specifically for each emergency number. They even had pretty pictures on them. Can the police etc no longer be contacted in a non-911 manner?
For anyone concerned with their family's well being surely reading the phone's manual on how to program numbers doesn't seem to be a particularly unreasonable task.
or more precise in germany you dial 110 for the police and 112 for emergency/fire. than you have to answer three question Who is calling? Where are you? What happened? In this sequence, if you can't, you must be dead. Or will be soon...
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
OK, technically not just three letter ones, but still:
PSAP? CLEC? RBOC? SBC? LATA?
Plus there's the known acronyms as well of LERG (explained here), DSL, VoIP, NOC.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
This doesn't mean a thing, apart from the US being the only country with a non-functional VoIP network in a few years. Same as they are now with mobile phones. The future of VoIP is not companies like Vonage offering the service like conventional phones, but free VoIP services like Skype (which is european based incidently) who couldn't care less about what the US G'dubyament decides. Also, who's going to stop people from just using Skype privately?
Is that I completely understood what you just said...
Best Slashdot Co
People have died because of this.
People have died because they are stupid and lazy.
I grew up in a rural area. If you needed emergency services, you dialed the corresponding 7 digit number for the service you needed. No one blamed any deaths in the area on a lack of 911 then and to do so now just further reinforces how dumb the majority really is, although I doubt that was ever in question.
AT&T Trimline phones had programmable buttons for Police, Fire, and Medical emergencies. If you needed help you could just press the key with matching picture, and the number you programmed in would be speed-dialed. When we got one of those phones, we could laugh at all the people who had to press 3 buttons to summon emergency services.
If you have switched to VOIP, and can't be bothered to read the warnings, set up 911, or program the correct 7 or 10 digit number into a speed-dial key on your phone, then you probably should die to help get the dumb genes out of the pool.
Bring back Sirius Punk!
The base has 2 AA rechargeables. In fact this morning the power went out and my cordless still worked.
... that acronyms don't have mass, otherwise your post would collapse into a black hole and swallow up all of Slashdot.
Unfortunately the vonage software wont be able to see the cable modem mac... only the mac of it's default gateway. I know i've used a few different routing set-ups here, but for most people that would work.
VOIP devices could use the addressing, caller-id, and location awareness in IPv6.
Actually, most VoIP providers (including Vonage, IIRC) tell you that you *should* test 911 service.
Luke-Jr
CowboyNeal: The vote came after testimony from people including a Florida woman who had her infant die after being unable to call 911 from her internet phone.
hoggoth: People have died because of this. They don't really care why it's difficult to fix. Somehow I think the technical difficulties will be solved. Even if it means a database of IP address to geographic location mappings.
The moment "they" get a database of IP addresses to geographic locations, you can kiss your precious WWW anonymity the hell goodbye.
Someday you people are gonna rue the day you surrendered to "them" your right to anonymity.
PS: And, as Cowboy Neal points out, we are [predictably enough] gonna be doing this to "Save the Chilrun'!"
If you configure your VoIP phone for DHCP from, say...CoffeeShop/Hotel/Home/Wherever - the DHCP server has "extentions" to give the physical address of it's location. DHCP is low scoped enough to where it could do that. Cable/DSL providers, that give DHCP to many different physical addresses can configure their DHCP server to recognize the MAC (mostly used in cable networks for authentication) or PPPoE authentication info to tie physical address information to an IP address.
It would take more than 120 days, but I think it would be more universally accepted than forcing it upon many different types of providers and hoping for the best. There's no way they could find them all.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is what this child died from (inexplicably they stop breathing), is both a real phenomenon and also the statistic for post-partum depression. New mothers can get very depressed, and sometimes they kill their babies. It is very sad. The fact of the matter is, SIDS and infant murder by suffocation seem very hard to differentiate, and if you are a parent and have taken the prenatal classes, you'd know about this sad reality.
This woman is giving federal testimony and putting so much blame on her child's death on an innocent VOIP provider, rather than keeping to herself about a personal matter; that is suspicious to me, and it seems quite guilt-laden behavior to run around blaming others when your child is dead. So in summary, that makes it "Someone may have killed her child, and then in later guilt, she blamed the VOIP company."
Stuff we don't know in this story: was this her first child? Was she happy in her marriage/was she married? Does her family have a history of post-partum depression? Did she possibly think to herself "oh my, I need to call for help, let me boot WINDOWS XP, connect to the internet, and try to place a call?" If that's the case, she should sue Microsoft for having such a slow-to-boot OS. Frankly, I don't know why any of you think this is unreasonable, women will go full-term with pregnancy and then seek a partial-birth abortion, I've heard of at least five stories about babies found in garbage bins in my state alone in the last five years, and on the flip-side, that woman (in Kansas) who was murdered and her fetus cut from her womb and stolen, alive.
I should have worked harder on my earlier post to be clear, I'm sorry it was too terse and had unexplained speculation. There are sick people out there, let's not put this "cover-up infanticide" past anyone anymore, because it happens every month.
The 911 Service needs to be privatized or just plain abolished. 911 is Unconstitutional because it's funded by money taken from me at gunpoint, it's telling a business what to do and what not to do, it's unresponsive, and it's putting people into a false sense of security because then people get rid of their firearms and rely on the unconstitutional police state that the repukeicrats have created, of course, they play on everyone elses fear to keep themselves in office._ __
________________________________________
A vote against a Libertarian candidate is
a vote to abolish the Constitution itself.
The sad fact is that it is not all that difficult to provide real E911 services via a VoIP phone. Some cable companies are providing it now and have been for years. Unfortunately there are a number of providers that didn't want to incur the cost associated with making that happen.