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."

Comments

Re:I'll tell you what happens..

[kesuki]

It's more than just 'normal caller id' ever called a pizza place? if you've enver ordered from them, they ask you your address... they have caller id on the computers they use to take the orders..

911 operation centers have a customer address database, provided to them by the telcos, governed by FCC rules. and 911 center calls are treated differently than normal calls too, they get the highest routing priority (meaning if you've been chatting on a circuit for hours on end*, and the circuits are 'loaded' and someone tries to call 911, your call will get dropped) In addition, if you've opted to have your caller id blocked completely (not even a number shows up) your number will Still Show up for 911 operations.

This is all because of FCC regs. And yeah, DSL uses a circuit too, but telcos went whole hog increasing the number of circuits available because of dialup, and the fact that many people continue to use dialup.. and modern systems no longer require the dialup isp to maintin a seperate circuit for each and every dialup user, because they have a 'digitial' connection... Also DSL can optionally be a 'dedicated' circuit meaning every other non dedicated circuit would have to be occupied by a 911 call for it to be dropped. something that can happen, in a disaster.. but not normally.

*= this happened a lot when i used dialup, every 2-3 days or so, circuits would get loaded for whatever reason, and my call would get dropped because it became lowest priority, if circuits cleared i would reconnect, but sometimes it took 5 or more minutes for enough circuits to clear...

Why don't I understand the big deal?

[CrackedButter]

I'm in the UK and this talk of enabling 911 services on a device seems a little stupid, why don't the phone companies do it for you right away? Why does the customer have to do it? Looking in this thread people mention they have to give an address? Whats the deal with that, they would need an address to get to you in an emergency. Why is this a big deal that every week on slashdot their is a discussion about it? I'm just a non american sitting here scratching my head with confusion and wondering what the hell you americans are playing at! Not trolling, I really want to know.