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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...
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~ |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
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.
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_
Could she not have run to the neighbor's house and borrowed a phone?
They already DO that. When you sign up you have to check a zkillion boxes saying that you acknowledge that you don't have real 911 service.
Of course, then a few people died, lawsuits ensued, and we wound up where we are now.
Why would you expect it to be any different?
In this case, however, I think it's a good thing. VZ and the other encumbents were playing the "oh, it's HAAAARDDD to open our 911 systems", which has to be a load of horse shit.
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"
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!
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.
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.
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.
You are missing the point. The government wants technology to advance and the old phone system to be replaced. If this is going to happen, new technologies have to offer the same emergency features. "Get a land line" will eventually not be an option, when it is no longer cost-effective for the telcos to provide them. The internet is not reliable? The Internet was designed to be reliable in the face of node failure, it was one of the primary design goals of the original Arpanet. The military wanted a system that could get messages from A to C even if B failed, by finding an alternate B. Your DSL service may not be reliable, but this is not the Internet. There is a difference, and it is an important one.
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?
Yes, it is really useful to tell a recording where you are! If you RTFA:
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
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.
Yes, this is becuase the incumbent telco's have been refusing to provide access to the actual emergency trunks leading into the PSAP's. If you'll RTFA, you'll note Vonage talking about agreements with varioues telco's, and that theyve been trying for a very long time. The FCC order, thankfully, also *requires* the telcos to allow access to them.
All in all, a good thing, however I *hope* that the order allows a customer to consciously make the choice to *not* have 911 service, if they know they will aboslutely not need it for some reason (either if they have a standard landline as well, or if they are shipping the VOIP box to a foreign country for a relative to use to call them free, etc)
The bit about requiring the VOIP companies to make sure their customers know the limitations of 911 - I'm honestly not sure how much clearer Vonage could be. (I have another Voip provider myself, that does not currently support 911 service, and I was fully aware of that and the consequences of it, before I ordered service from them)
That said, if lack of 911 is in any way hoding back adoption of Voip, then I applaud this, as it forces the telco's to allow the Voip's to connect to 911 properly, and will allow them to offer it, which could very well be the hinge point that allows a lot more people to dump their expen$ive pots lines and go with Voip. Maybe this will be the competition that finally drives the ilecs to lower the prices.
GPS is not an option indoors which limits it to less than 5% of all VoIP phone/device locations.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
Is that I completely understood what you just said...
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