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VoIP Providers Worry as FCC Clams Up
phoneboy writes "By the end of next week, Voice over IP providers must advise all subscribers of any 911 service limitations and get "affirmative acknowledgment" that customers understand that VoIP 911 service is not the same as landline 911 by July 29. What happens if the customers don't affirm? The FCC isn't saying."
VoIP providers don't know what's gonna happen. Lots of lawyers try to pretend they know. FCC sticks with "no comment." In the end, everyone does whatever they want.
Hopefully the FCC would get enough seriously negative feedback from consumers that they won't try this shit again.
And I'm sure VoIP providers (many of which are commercially run) will be happy to risk the bad publicity. [/sarcasm]
What's more likely is that the VoIP providers will call the FCC's bluff. After all, the FCC might not do anything.
No. It really should not be up to the customer, simply because if there's an emergency you might have someone else trying to use your phone. If you slip and impale yourself in the neck on a kitchen knife a friend of yours might try to call help on your phone.. because, quite rightly, everyone expects every single phone everywhere should be able to call 911 at any time.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
It's really something where people have to be bullied into doing something that may save their own lives. And then people complain about it.
If everyone was a little less ineptm and a little less ready to blame everyone else we wouldn't need to do this sort of thing.
This should be totally optional to the customer. If they don't want to set it up.. fine.. that's their problem, not OURS...
Yes, it should be, and if the US weren't so sue-happy, it probably would be. As it stands, they are much less likely to be sued by forcing you to activate E911 than by allowing you to not have it. Because even if they had paperwork on file with your signature declining E911 service, they have no guarantee that that paperwork won't get lost...and in the event of your untimely death, in which a lack of 911 covereage was a factor, the inability to produce that document has the possibility of making your family very, very rich.
Of course, the easiest course of action to take would be a waiver, on the initial service contract, that explains that they make no guarantees whatsoever regarding 911 service. It might scare off a few customers, but it would cover their ass pretty effectively (because every customer would have signed it, regardless of whether they set up E911), and prevent stupid situations like what's happening to you.
I know this is a pain for most of you who use voice IP services, but this is actually a pretty reasonable rule. Everyone in America is taught from a very early age to dial "911" if you're in serious trouble. And the FCC has gone to great lengths to make sure that those calls always get connected. Payphones don't charge for them. Cell phones, even if they don't have service established, are supposed to put them through. And now, it's voice IP's time to make sure such calls work.
"You" may be smart enough to know that the call won't go through, or won't be able to access address information for emergency services. But what about the plumber who you (foolishly) left in your house, who has a heart attack and crawls to your phone ? Or your friend, who watches you pass out while eating a cheese doodle ? Is he going to know that you were too lazy to call and register your information ?
If these companies want to provide home telephone service (or something like it) then they should provide the same 911 emergency information that everyone else does. Because it saves lives.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
Which address do I tell the VOIP service to pass onto 911?
Using a laptop and roaming means I may connect from anywhere.
Its useless sending emergency services to my home when I'm lying in a ditch somewhere.
liqbase
If I were really in an emergency, I would probably use whatever communication method is closest, even if it were a tin can with a string hanging out the end of it.
For real, I have a land line and a cell phone. I don't have a VoIP phone, but I've used them. If I were really in an emergency, I wouldn't hesitate to use any of the three and would only resort to one farther away if my first choice didn't work or if the emergency personnel on the other end specifically requested it. I probably wouldn't even stop to think about it.
One of the points made is that there is sometimes no way to tell the location of a VOIP phone, which is a problem if you are unable to talk.
How about if the VOIP app. insisted that you record a 30 second emergency message (stating your location/name/whatever) when being installed and then watched what numbers you were dialling. If you ever dialled 911, and then if there was more than 20 seconds of dead airtime, began to play the message over and over.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
It already is up to me as a customer. I don't have a landline or VOIP, thus no 911. What would the goverment do, break down my door, and hold me at bay by gun point while they install a giant red telephone for direct 911 access?
Regardless of all the avenues government is trying to act without regard to consumer choices, via the "municipal" services route... the consumer still has a choice in telephony.
Yes, I can refuse 911 service. I do refuse 911 service. Not that I "care" if I had it or not, but I see no reason to pay $20 a month for a phone I would rarely if ever use, just for 911 service. The FCC can force 911 service all they want, but until they can forcibly enter my house (I'd like to see them try!), I won't have 911 service, because I don't have a phone and don't plan on getting one.
If my friend sees me impaled on a knife, he can drive me to the hospital himself. I live closer to my local hospital than the ambulance dispatch center.
I8-D
Don't call the nice Brit a troll. In case you didn't notice, registering your meatspace co-ords with a VOIP provider won't change the problem you describe, so his point is still well made: they could register the address of the VOIP customer as a first point, and then hassle people to change it when they move.
I reckon the solution will only come with GPS receivers in all handsets, VOIP and cell, myself.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
The FCC has been pretty reasonable on this one. They're not asking anyone to put GPS devices in laptops or create some kind of database of every IP address known to man. They've said that VoIP providers are to get an address from every single customer to say where they are, and put the onus on those customers to keep the VoIP provider updated should they move around. Obviously, if you use your VoIP as a mobile phone, which is, frankly, bizarre, then you have to recognize 911 isn't going to be that useful to you. Which it isn't today either.
I'm staggered by the outright stupidity of most Slashdotters on this subject. They assume, without bothering to read a line of the FCC stuff, that the FCC doesn't understand the basic issues concerning VoIP and have simply mandated something completely idiotic. In fact, the FCC has mandated this to make VoIP credible. The big issue here wasn't that VoIP providers didn't want to provide 911 services, it was that incumbent carriers refused to allow VoIP to peer with them for 911, so VoIP providers couldn't provide proper 911.
To solve this, the FCC has said: (1) VoIP providers need to be upfront and honest about the limitations of their services as-is. (2) They need to get customers to provide information on their whereabouts and provide the means for those customers to update that information in a timely manner. and, the biggy, (3) local carriers must work with VoIP providers. If you choose, as a customer, to not provide your VoIP carrier with timely updates, then that's your problem, not the VoIP supplier. The FCC isn't saying otherwise.
So relax.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"what would you do in the event that lightning struck your demarc outside our house and in the process frying all your landlines and catching your house on fire? How about if a tornado ripped up the telephone pole where your copper terminates? Or a burglar cuts your lines hoping to kill your security system?"
You know, I hate people that rattle off "what if" questions like you just did. What if you get killed by driving to work today? What if your computer monitor blows up? What if... what if... shut the fuck up.
Good God. It's like you're just trying to make yourself look like an asshat, and you're doing a good job of it, might I add.
If there is a tornado close enough to rip up your phone lines, STAY THE FUCK OFF THE PHONE. If your house is on fire, GET THE FUCK OUT. Are you stupid? Would you really stand around in your living room and call 911 while half of your house is on fire or it's tornado season and there is a F5 down the block?
You know, you should stop being curious if all you can come up with are stupid questions.
Well, imho, the phone companies are a joke, which is why I don't want/need a phone. I've had a few people give me strange looks when I tell them I don't have a phone. It's about as unimaginable as someone without a TV. (I have a TV, rarely watch it, and when I do, it's CNN, History, TLC, Discovery, or SciFi.)
Someone said I could reach 911 on a disconnected line. Yeah, maybe, if I had a phone plugged in. But, unlike a phone subscriber, I don't pay that emergency "tax" subscribers get on their monthly bills (along with all the other ridiculous taxes). If it's a public service, why isn't there a flat tax for it regardless of subscribership?
As for how I would explain to an Arson investigator if my house burnt down because of no phone... In the future, could not having a phone could be a crime? I don't think the poster intended it that way, but think about it. That's a scary idea.
But, to answer the question, AFAIK, the advice is not to call 911 from your own house if it is on fire. Priority #1 is to get everyone in the building and yourself out. Thus, it doesn't matter if your home has 911, but if your neighbor does. Does that make me a bad neighbor? I suppose in a way. Then again, if it's that vital, why aren't 911 enabled phones readily available on every other street corner?
Ah, they used to be (payphones). Then came the cellphone, and everyone not able to pay the high cellphone charges watched as payphones became rarer. If 911 was so vital of a service, why did its public/free availability shrink merely due to increasing shareholder value. It's a scam, that's why. It was always about shareholder profits. This idea that 911 is a must have, but is only obtainable by subscribing to overpriced services. What's next, to get medical care at a hospital, I have to subscribe to the local newspaper? Fire trucks only for those who have memberships to the local golf club? Police only take stolen vehicle reports if you are an AAA member?
And, yet, somehow, I'm the bad guy for not buying into the idea by purchasing a service I don't need or want.
I8-D