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Vonage 911 Deadline Passed
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo is reporting that the FCC may block any new customers wishing to sign up with Vonage. The internet phone service company has passed the Monday deadline that was given to them to provide reliable 911 service. From the article: "The company -- which has more than 1 million subscribers -- said it was capable of transmitting a call back number and location for 100 percent of its subscribers, but that it still was waiting for cooperation from competitors that control the 911 network."
Sounds like a good deal for the rest of the VOIP providers?
'Scuse me, Ma Bell Jr., aka SBC. I can hear Ernestine now, yanking the wires: "Oops, there went 911!"
Whatever happened to "common carrier" status?
Shouldn't the uncooperative companies be fined/sued? After all, they were supposed to cooperate and they didn't.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
Profit. Collusion to kill the VOIP bandwagon, pure and simple.
Also: their Customer Service absolutely stinks.
I subscribe to Packet8 and they rolled it out today. Wonder what's keeping Vonage and others from getting this rolled out?
We have completed 911 Dialing activation for your Vonage line...
e x.htm and edit your information from the 911 Dialing feature box.
...
Now when you dial 911, Vonage will route your call to a general number at your nearest emergency response center, based on the address below:
If this address is incorrect, simply click on the following link to login to your web account https://secure.vonage.com/vonage-web/features/ind
Please note if you move your device you must reactivate 911 Dialing with your new address. If you add a line to your account you will need to activate 911 Dialing for that line as well.
If you would like more information about Vonage's 911 Dialing service, please visit the 911 Feature page at http://www.vonage.com./ If you have any questions please reply to this email, or call us Toll Free at: 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
We appreciate your business.
So what gives?
using Vonage for nearly six months now and have had no trouble with their service. I do have some trouble with my phone getting caller ID and not ringing, but that is a case for another day.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
Vonage.ca has 911. You just have to tell them where your primary residence is.
http://www.vonage.ca/features.php?feature=911
911 is a Joke
Hit me
Going, going, gone
Now I dialed 911 a long time ago
Don't you see how late they're reactin'
They only come and they come when they wanna
So get the morgue embalm the goner
They don't care 'cause they stay paid anyway
They teach ya like an ace they can't be betrayed
I know you stumble with no use people
If your life is on the line they you're dead today
Late comings with the late comin' stretcher
That's a body bag in disguise y'all betcha
I call 'em body snatchers quick they come to fetch ya?
With an autopsy ambulance just to dissect ya
They are the kings 'cause they swing amputation
Lose your arms, your legs to them it's compilation
I can prove it to you watch the rotation
It all adds up to a funky situation
So get up get, get get down
911 is a joke in yo town
Get up, get, get, get down
Late 911 wears the late crown
911 is a joke
Everyday they don't never come correct
You can ask my man right here with the broken neck
He's a witness to the job never bein' done
He would've been in full in 8 9-11
Was a joke 'cause they always jokin'
They the token to your life when it's croakin'
They need to be in a pawn shop on a
911 is a joke we don't want 'em
I call a cab 'cause a cab will come quicker
The doctors huddle up and call a flea flicker
The reason that I say that 'cause they
Flick you off like fleas
They be laughin' at ya while you're crawlin' on your knees
And to the strength so go the length
Thinkin' you are first when you really are tenth
You better wake up and smell the real flavor
Cause 911 is a fake life saver
So get up, get, get get down
911 is a joke in yo town
Get up, get, get, get down
Late 911 wears the late crown
Ow, ow 911 is a joke
...Still can't find the 'eleven' key on my keypad.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
The problem isn't that Vonage doesn't let your reach a 911 operator (though in the past, that has been a problem in some areas)
The problem is that the 911 operator doesn't get your number and address. Name and address are Enhanced 911 (E911), and that's the requirement. Without E911, the 911 operator has no idea who you are nor where you are.
I also got a letter on the 26th stating that I had 911 enabled (only took them 1/2 year). Well, anyone NOT getting 911 - I'm sure it's not Vonage's problem and IF the FCC uses this to shut them down (or prevent them from signing up anyone new) then I think that the PacBells have a friend or two at the FCC. Now, wouldn't that be shocking ;-)
Just another example how the encumbants are trying to thwart the growth of a superior business model - same old - we should all consider these types of issues next time elections are being held. Oh wait - Dibold is now electing our administrations and officials - never mind...
>hmm maybe they have a vested interest in NOT providing vonage that access?
The article is short on details. Depending on how "uncooperative" they are being, and in what ways, they might find themselves in trouble, since Vonage and the FCC could claim that they are interfering with someone's effort to comply with lawful orders. Obstruction of justice perhaps, that sort of thing?
If Vonage is sandbagging because they aren't getting 911 to POTS *for free* that's another matter entirely.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Vonage told me I had 911 dialing a long time ago. I just checked my email records, and they sent me a confirmation eight months ago, on March 30, 2005. They said that it was active and I'm assuming they are not making that up. However, I am in Canada, whereas obviously this article pertains to the US. So is it possible that in Canada the other companies were more compliant? ... or perhaps the legal pressure in Canada was more effective? Clearly Vonage is able (technologically) to deliver this service, so I tend to believe them when they say that it is the other telcos blocking their attempts.
I am no expert on the 911 system, but I am assuming that local PSAPs have local telephone numbers that they could be called at instead of through 911. Couldn't Vonage just create a little database linking zip codes to the appropriate PSAPs number and bypass the bastards holding them up? This would be incredibly simple to do ... as long as they could get the phone numbers for all the PSAPs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1
-- James
How about making 911 reliable for cell phone customers first? Being ON HOLD for 10 minutes after calling 911 is not fun.
...After reading hundreds upon hundreds of horror stories about Vonage's customer service at places like VOIP-Forums, I decided that I wasn't quite ready to take the plunge. I'm sure I'm not alone. Everyone's blaming the FCC for trying to shut down Vonage and whatnot, has nobody considered that maybe it's just not all that great a company?
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
From Vonage's own site
http://www.vonage.com./features.php?feature=911
The problem is that the number vonage routes your call to may or may not be the correct point for 911 calls to be handled in your town, they don't know because they are relying on published numbers for emergency dispatch. The baby-bells won't share information on where to send 911 calls for given addresses.
With all the recent uproar surrounding this issue, I have to wonder why the cell providers aren't required to do this?
I am a Vonage subscriber. It was stated quite clearly from day on, and I am an early adopter, that 911 is handled differently and that I had to keep my physical address information updated on the Vonage dashboard to help ensure timely response by emergency services. I have yet had the need to test this though.
However, my cell phone provider never said anything, at least not clearly, and the one time I had to call 911, I went through a whole little dance giving my physical address to the operator and then wait to be transfered to a local 911 response center.
So, what's the difference?
As a Vonage user, I've wondered what kind of problems I might run into, but last week, I began to feel anxious and my heart began to pound / chest pains... I asked a friend to call 911.
;).
There was a 1-2 second delay and I could tell that my friend had been transfered, but within minutes medics were at my house. I'm not sure what kind of system they use, but here in St Louis it works.
On a lighter note, the medics didn't find anything wrong with me, and I've chalked it up to stress / coffee
What I want to know is how they are implementing this under the guise of E911. "E911" means different things with landlines than it does with, say, cell phones. So how are they meeting the threshold of "E911" service? These devices are portable; what happens if it is moved down the street? Taken on a trip? Taken to the office? What guarantees the E911 capability stays in effect? I'm not saying the VoIP companies should be able to perform miracles; in fact, I think too much was being asked of them as it was. If the E911 information is valid for the device at a particular location, how is it guaranteed to stay valid?
Thankfully I own stock in EGHT. Packet 8 had a leg up on the competition in this matter since they offered E911 service before the mandate from the FCC for an extra charge.
As I see it, one of the problems with this is simply determining where "phone" services begin and end. For example, while Vonage or Lingo may be a real 'phone replacement' and for 99.9% of users should be able to do 911 service, how about Skype? If you only use Skypeout and you only use it via a headset on a laptop, is that VoIP? It certainly *is* "Voice over IP", but does that make it a phone service that should need 911 service?
If they start classifying things like Skype as a voice telecommunications service and requiring 911 calls to function, then what's next? 911 requirements for Teamspeak?
Maybe a VoIP "phone" is one which can place a call which eventually gets circuit switched on one end, even if 99% of the transit is packet switched.
It seems to me that what really needs to happen is a revamping of the 911 system to deal with the portability of numbers. You want 911? Fine, go somewhere and configure your address any time you move the phone around. When you dial 911, it transmits your entered address. Possibly the hardware/software acting as your phone also monitors the MAC address of its default gateway after you change the address associated; if the MAC address changes but the address has not, a warning goes out to emergency services that notes that there is reason to believe the address may not be completely reliable (and thus, hopefully an emergency operator can confirm it with you when you call).
Lots of little things rely on the phone network. My house alarm, for example, will freak out completely if I cut my phone service entirely, because it uses the phone line to keep in touch with the alarm monitoring service.
Fight the fall of slashdot by supporting PlayfullyClever in your sig.
They included my address in the e-mail... and that's what they are reporting for E911.
I have been a customer for years... using really old Cisco ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) hardware... in one of the smaller metro markets they are in... If they can get to me, I would expect them to be hitting more than 26% of their customer base. This surprises me that Vonage didn't meet the mark, it also surprises me that the FCC might have to be involved.
It doesn't surprise me however that some A-C asswipe would troll on my contribution of a piece of information that illustrates my experience as an actual customer.
So I spend most of my Skype time "on the road" (as in, coffeeshops). How's a 911 dispatcher ever going to find me? Why would I expect one to without providing additional information? There's no infrastructure for tracing the location of IPs/MACs (and thank God for that).
If your IP phone is nailed to a wall, sure, this makes sense.
Otherwise, what, I have to have a GPS card plugged into my laptop and make all my calls outdoors?
I recently signed up for a Vonage account. It has very cool features, but the audio quality has been dismal to mediocre so far. I thought there might be a problem with my uplink speed, so I took the adapter and a phone to an ISP to see what 100Mbps might do. Voice quality was slightly better, but not much. Now I have noticed the delay between phone activation and dial-tone is so long, the auto-dialer on the phone dials most of the number before I get a dial tone. I'll probably cancel the account soon. I estimate the successful calls I have made so far cost about $10/minute, given the startup fees and disconnect fees.
Too bad, I really liked a lot of the features they offer.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
However, my cell phone provider never said anything, at least not clearly, and the one time I had to call 911, I went through a whole little dance giving my physical address to the operator and then wait to be transfered to a local 911 response center.
That's weird. My assumption was, when you dial 911 from a cell phone, whichever cell you're in at the time determines which 911 center the call will be routed to - so if I'm at home and dial 911, the call will be routed to my local 911 response center (about a block and a half from me, actually), but if I go somewhere else and dial 911, the call will be routed to whatever 911 response center is appropriate for that location, because that's where the cell tower is.
With cell phones, they know where all the towers are and can set up 911 appropriately. With VOIP, they have no way to know where you're physically connecting from, so they have to base it off your billing address, which may be unhelpful if you're not at home.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
According to this they have 911 support (which sounds like it may not route as well as land line 911), but they don't have E911 service which "automatically associates the physical address with the calling party's telephone number." Notice the article posted on Slashdot is talking specifically about E911 service.
Speakeasy's VOIP service not only has 911, but it goes directly to my local police department, with complete information. Why can't Vonage do this?!
This sig no verb.
Why can't they just simply ask users to enter their location, and map it to a local emergency number from some database? Do they not have long phone number equivalents to 911? Does this database exist? Specifically what information do they need from the "911 controllers"?
911 can mean just routing the call to a center based on your address. E911 requires that the center also receive your address and phone number.
What they did was try to use the FCC to shutdown Vonage using the fear of not being able to dial 911 as the reason. This was not the case, by the way, if you called 911 you would get a local 911 center but they would have to ask you for the exact location and phone number. The FCC ordered them to make the address information exact and to send the phone number to the correct 911 dispatch center for that address aka E911 compliance. What they thought would happen is that Vonage would either be unwilling are unable to afford to comply. Well Vonage managed to comply, but when they asked to connect their system to the E911 system the phone companies had a real problem. It is not just that they wanted to drag their feet. They had gotten the FCC to say that if Vonage did not fully support E911 they would be shutdown, what they failed to think about is that they themselves do not fully support the E911 system, so in many places Vonage's system would know where the caller is but there is no working E911 system for them to connect to. Something that, they had kept neatly hidden from most people. They were also trying to get the FCC to require that Vonage phones not need to have the user register where they are using the phone for E911. This might be done but it would eliminate the ability to have roaming phones, be very costly, and of course irritate privacy advocates. By using the system Vonage does it avoids the loss of roaming and privacy issue, but still complies at least to the level they could sue the FCC over and that most people would find palatable. The phone companies simply did not anticipate how Vonage would comply and that they themselves could not meet the same standard they put on Vonage. I hope the FCC starts threating to close down ATT. I also think the did not realize just how much several other companies including in many cases themselves would want to use VOIP. Companies like Google with the ability to crush them.
When you call 911, tell them, "this guy just walked-up and capped a police officer, shot 'em in da head." You will recieve instantaneous service no matter where you are. Do make sure it is a real emergency.
Cell phone providers are now required to support E911. To wit:
(Source: http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/)
In order to implement E911, GPS is necessary. In some areas you can get quite excellent pinpointing from cell triangulation, but not in others, due to terrain features, buildings, and other sources of interference. Thus, it will be impossible to purchase a cellular phone without GPS in the US starting January 1. Even phones which do not provide GPS functionality to the user will contain GPS! All of them.
(Disclaimer: "The FCC has granted various limited waivers of the Phase II rules to wireless carriers, subject to revised deployment schedules and quarterly reporting requirements.") - see the linked page above.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do them while you're on our network and no one will come to help you.
OK... before I read another comment saying... "E911 associates your address and name with your phone number"
The e-mail asks me to confirm my address and they know my name.
I've used Vonage for years on their oldest hardware... and am not in the biggest city they serve... I would think that would put me in the 74% not being served correctly. Why is Vonage having a problem implementing this service? Doesn't it sound like that "26%" statistic just might be bullshit?
The little dance you went through is probably due to the fact that you could be anywhere (not home). So they have to determine where to send the paramedics. I thought all phones had GPS for this reason though?
Plus cell phones, even deactivated ones, are still required to be able to be used for 911 purposes afaik.
From an email I got 2 weeks ago
"We've made it easy for you to check your 911 coverage. If you dial 933 from your Vonage phone, TCS's VoIP Verify service will inform you how your emergency calls will be routed and what information you should be prepared to provide to the emergency services operator."
Supplies!
Any new phone sold in the past 2-3 years has been required to be E911-capable. (Yes, to have proper E911 support, changes needed to be made to the phone. Specifically, GPS receivers were added to all cell phones sold after a certain date. Note that the receivers in question cannot obtain a location fix by themselves, they send the pseudorange data they obtain to the tower for processing into a navigation fix.)
I believe the specific E911 requirement for cell phones was positioning to within 100 meters or 100 feet, I can't recall which.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Simple. The cell phone providers own their own congressmen and women....
*sigh*
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
That's exactly what I thought 90 days ago, the minute I heard about the 911 deadline. 1: Buy the regulators, regulate the competition out of existence. 2: Raise rates endlessly on captive customers. 3: Profit!
I'm far from an expert on the 911 system, but I do feel pretty safe in asserting one particular detail: 911 call centers were built and are operated by the public, using local/state/federal tax dollars.
Now as I understand it, it varies from pole-to-pole as to who owns the telephone poles -- some are owned by the city, some by the electric company, some the telcos, cable company, etc.
However, the city, using public funding, built the 911 infrastructure, at great expense to the taxpayers. In many cities, 911 calls are routed through a separate circuit, and telco companies are required to route 911 calls even if a phone line is not in service. However, if a line is simply dead, I imagine this doesn't apply. Obviously most people at the time when 911 was first rolled out did not foresee the telcos competing for phone service with Internet/cable/etc, so there was little hesitation in making the last-mile of the 911 infrastructure dependent on the telco infrastructure.
Phone lines, though, are often the one thing that works when power/cable/Internet go down (which is often, and frequently related to and thus coinciding with the particular emergency you're calling about!). In the interest of the public good, an arrangement allowing 911 calls to be made through the existing phone lines ought to be in-place, if it is not already. Yes, VOIP 911 should be implemented as well, but at the end of the day putting the public in a situation where they have to rely on a working power/cable/internet connection to get an emergency operator is dangerous. In fact VOIP-based 911 may actually make things worse, providing a false sense of security. How many callers are going to keep a regular phone hooked up to their POTS line just as a backup for 911? And how much extra time is going to be wasted when they first try 911 on their VOIP line, discover it's dead, then race over to their nearest POTS "backup" phone, which is most likely nowhere near where the victim they're calling for is!
911 was built from the ground up to be extremely reliable, because a service like 911 has to be reliable. Power/cable/internet are very unreliable and have a tendency to be down at exactly the time a 911 call needs to be made.
There are other ways to approach this problem. Hopefully someone will do so, because, like I said, this sounds like a dangerous situation, and getting Vonage to route 911 calls isn't going to fix these reliability problems.
With VOIP, they have no way to know where you're physically connecting from
Bullshit. Lookup geolocation by ip.
Vonage just didn't get around to it in time.
I'm not kidding. I have Vonage, and I filled out the form for the "911" service right away. I decided to test it one evening. When I dial 911 my call is routed to a general reception desk at my local police department, not the local 911 dispatch. At this point I really don't have 911 service.
Dial 911 then quickly, but not hurriedly, explain that you just got new phone service and you're testing the line. Ask, "Is this the 911 dispatch center for yourtownnamehere."
911's a joke!
And yet there's no way to just look at your current GPS location. They charge extra for that.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
My point is more the the fact of why do we not hear about this side of it? The news is inundated with VoIP E911 coverage.
As to the cell phones, old cell phones that do not have GPS are functional for 911 only. These phones are often times distributed by non-profits, for example to battered women's shelters. Reliance on GPS is not going to help them, and as they are not an active account, all they will have to go on is the cell tower triagulation methods.
Cell triangulation can be hard in some areas.
My point is more the the fact of why do we not hear about this side of it? The news is inundated with VoIP E911 coverage.
"In order to implement E911, GPS is necessary."
. php
Not the case. While CDMA and iDEN phones do need GPS to provide reliable triangulation, GSM triangulation systems exist that provide position with sufficent accuracy to meet E911 requirements:
http://www.trueposition.com/news_07.23.03_tmobile
That is basically the crux of the matter now isn't it?
It seems to me that Vonage cannot provide a reliable 911 service due to the fact that it rely's on your internet connection, so if the power goes out or your ISP goes down, then your screwed. At least with the cable company in my area, they offer a seperate modem seperate from their internet traffic, with a battery backup, and the cable co's equipment in the area also has a battery backup. This should be the only acceptable format for voip (redundancy), and I can see where the telco's are coming from, sure their looking out for their business, but maybe they just don't want to see people in trouble from not being able to call 911?
What about older cell phones that do not have GPS are functional for 911 only. These phones are often times distributed by non-profits, for example to battered women's shelters. Reliance on GPS is not going to help them, and as they are not an active account, all they will have to go on is the cell tower triagulation methods.
I know people that are using their US Vonage account outside of the US. What happens if they need to dial the emergency services (999 or 112 in most of Europe, I believe) when their address is outside of Vonage's service area (US, Canada, UK; assuming that they updated their address with Vonage in the first place)? I would imagine they it just wouldn't work or would get forwarded to the 911 center local to their US address. Not exactly what one would want, but I imagine there isn't any easy solutions to this. Presumably the dialers would be aware of this issue in the first place if they're using a Vonage account for a US number in a foreign country.
Great, then they get the address of your ISP, which might be in a different city. Idiot.
I'm wondering if the heirachy structure of the IPv6 address could be used here. I don't know how IP roaming works (apparently a feature in IPv6) but could the header of the address be used to track you to your access point, and if the ISP was required to have access point addresses, then they could use those? OK, already I see a problem of shipping address versus billing address, and it would require the ISP's have open access logs, but don't you need them already to save you all from terrorists?
Just a thought I didn't see come up.
http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=911/
Depends on your area, and what's in your cell. In Cali, there are two call centers (norcal, socal), staffed by CHP. All mobile 911 calls go there. Then they'll forward you from there to a local dispatcher (if you're lucky). There can be a bit of a wait.
A landline call is routed directly to the call center (by the telco's CO, I beleive).
So while yes, the cell phone knows exactly where you are (better than gps with a CDMA phone), and sends that to the call center, the data often just falls on the floor. Of course, if you're calling from a car, driving down the highway, your location quickly changes.
So don't call in an accident without stopping at it. It just wastes everyone's time.
You know, what they ought to do is stick a GPS tranceiver in the Vonage adapter and be done with it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Rememebr the good old days before electronic BigBrotherism became the national religion? Back then, freindly PEOPLE woudl ask PEOPLE for information verbally and write it down on PAPER with a Pencil. I am sure if someone digs in the back drawer they can locate these technological has-been and re-learn their use. They even work with an Indian accent too!
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
With all the recent uproar surrounding this issue, I have to wonder why the cell providers aren't required to do this?
I am a Vonage subscriber. It was stated quite clearly from day on, and I am an early adopter, that 911 is handled differently and that I had to keep my physical address information updated on the Vonage dashboard to help ensure timely response by emergency services. I have yet had the need to test this though.
However, my cell phone provider never said anything, at least not clearly, and the one time I had to call 911, I went through a whole little dance giving my physical address to the operator and then wait to be transfered to a local 911 response center.
So, what's the difference?
With a cell the operator can call your provider and get yoru location through triangulation through cell towers, but the process takes a little time so it's often easier to ask for your physical address.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
If you actually read the email closely, you'll note where it says "Vonage will will route your call to a general number...." That's not the actual 911 port, but a general information number that may or may not be manned 24/7 and may or may not be able to patch your call to the actual emergency operators. It almost certainly will not be able to provide E911 service. (Which provides the 911 operator with your adress/physical location.)
It's this exact behavior that lead to Vonage being sued by the State of Florida, which lead to the FCC's action. (A child died because Vonage routed a 911 call in the wee hours to a Sheriff's office information number that was not manned outside of normal working hours.)
I work for a company that provides E911 service for VoIP providers. I won't get into all the details but there are quite a few misconceptions so far on this board. The big problem with VoIP, other than the fact that we can't determine where you are (unlike wireless where at least we know your closest cell tower, if not your GPS or location via triangulation) is the totally nomadic nature of the device. Right now if you don't tell us where you are we have no clue. You could be in Australia. There are lots of technical proposals for this (DHCP sending Geopriv location when you get IP, etc.) but none are there yet.
A basic primer: the E911 network is actually a separate network. The local Wireline End Office switch has dedicated trunks to a 911 tandem (aka Selective Router), which has dedicated trunks to a set of PSAPs (local 911 call centers). For wireless the wireless carriers simply ordered dedicated trunks from their local MSC (mobile switching center) to these selective routers. Obviously, Vonage does not have a local presence. They had to figure out a way to connect to all 650 selective routers nationwide from their data centers. Imagine now some local startup in Florida that has to connect redundant T-1s (the requirement of the ILECs like SBC in order to have E911 access) to all 650 selective routers. It ain't going to happen in 120 days.
Wait, we're not done. The next issue is how to transmit the address of the subscriber to the PSAP real-time. The wireline E911 databases hold static addresses under the assumption that you never moved. This doesn't work when you can move your device. If I live in Texas but travel to Chicago for work (and go to the website to update my address) how do I get the address into the right system real-time? These databases are mostly managed by the ILECs and there are probably 50 or so out there, each totally standalone. The legacy 911 service order processes of the phone companies for order flowthrough typically take a few days.
Fortunately, the wireless carriers figured out a solution: real-time steering from the local 911 database to a central datastore which transmits the location. For wireless the X,Y coordinates are transmitted. We piggy-backed off this standard but had to modify it to support civic locations (well, MSAG, but that's another essay). Of course, the ILECs (SBC, etc.) required new agreements for this. It also requires a new query key assigned for VoIP so everyone knows this is a VoIP call and the carrier to call in the event of a problem. This query key lets the local 911 database know which provider to query. This query key also gets around the constraint of the selective routers that only support local rate center NPA/NXXs. Basically, if you have a Chicago number in Dallas you can't get your call through. A p-ANI was developed for wireless to get around that.
Here's the problem: the query keys must be assigned to each provider. These are called ESQKs, or p-ANIs in the industry. The FCC was supposed to name a numbering authority to distribute these keys to all the providers. The industry recommended Neustar as the temporary RNA. Until this is done noone can provide true E911. Well, the FCC has been silent on this so we have all been in a Catch-22 situation.
Many, Many people have cordless phones *only*, and when the power goes out, so does their phone. Some cordless phones have built-in batteries in the base so they will work with a power outage, but these are in the minority.
So regardless of VOIP, cable connections, what have you, a large number of people will lose 911 access from their phones in a power outage.
Me, I have my cable modem, VOIP router AND cordless base on a UPS. While construction was going on in my neighborhood recently I was able to use the phone and my laptop for over 2 hours with no interruption. Only problem was the nagging beep from the UPS trying to tell me the power was out.
Some people aren't experienced or bright enough to figure out that things plugged into a wall outlet don't usually work if the wall outlet is dead. Those people should get old fashioned POTS service and pay 2x as much for local only. If they want to save money with VOIP, they better read up on it first.
The problem with location identification is that we are focusing at the wrong location. ISPs should be the ones responsible for giving general locations to the VOIP provider. The VOIP provider doesn't know where the ISPs networks are, and making the VOIP provider responsible for this is going to fail miserably.
Again, yet another wonderful ideal from the morons in charge.
--WooooHoooo--
Some good stuff in the parent post.
Basicly, they are requiring Vonage to be E911 but the industry isn't ready to provide E911 for VoIP but have already started plans to.
Of course, do you think the Bell's really want aviable solution to this problem?
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
" Your paranoid elusion aside, real people have died because they tried to call 911 using a VoIP carrier."
You malapropism aside (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malapropism), you're making stuff up. You might as well say that if we use VoIP then the terrorists have already won. Its bullshit.
Oh, and if you're looking for a site, try not to use fark.
Last week I had to call for the medics to show when the person in the next apartment had a medical problems. The call went right to the local police and they had the medics on the way before I could tell them my address. All I can say is that it worked for me. But I am not everyone.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Not a 100% on topic... but the first article to mention Vonage so ....
I was a vonage subscriber for 5 months. The phone worked alright most of the time, but maybe 2 calls a week would break up or otherwise drop out. The thing that was most upsetting was their complete lack of customer support. They would absolutely ignore all my emails and contact by phone was nearly impossible. I waited all that time to get my phone number ported which should have occured between 2 weeks to a month. 5 months later and no luck. The one time I did get through the customer rep laughed, like... yeah we get all kinds of calls about that. Needless to say, I ditched that service and havn't looked back.
Blender And Linux Fan
The wireless providers were dealing with an old system that needed upgrading, and a lot of the changes were hardware. VoIP is new, and largely software based. We have VoIP on campus and E911 was not a problem, in fact it had to be addressed before we'd roll it out. I'm not saying they were given a trivial job, but it wasn't the same shit wireless providers had to go through.
Several months back I was looking to end my cell service contract beause my employer was willing to provide me a cell phone and lets face it free as in beer is much better than $40/month. I've been a Vonage subscriber for well over a year and had contacted them to find out about porting my cell number to my Vonage account as many people knew that number as a contact for me.
The customer service rep said that it would take 3-4 weeks to complete the porting. When I pushed him further because of stories I had read on the web about it taking 3-6 months to get numbers ported he acknowledged that it does happen from time to time and used the same excuse which is that their 3rd party providers are responsable for the delays not them.
The pattern I am seeing is that they have everything subcontracted out so that nothing can possibly be their fault. I wonder how long it will be until they get the e911 subcontractor. Personally I have a cell, my fiance has a cell, I've activated Vonage 911 service, and my neighbors have landlines so I'm perfectly OK without e911 service. The fact that Vonage has never once made it appear that their 911 service is the same as traditional service, I believe should exempt them from this requirement. Why is it that terms of service are only enforcable when copyright is at stake?
It surprises me that some bloke hasn't come on and made some comment like this:
"/. is sooooo behind the times. This article ran 4 months ago on some other site and Vonage has had the problem fixed for 12 days"
Granted, maybe they have, they just werent witty enough to get a 3 rating for funny...
You don't need to know that. Only the DHS does..... We know who you are.
The truth is:
1. The FCC is making it hard for VoIP providers to compete - it is all
politics and Bush is not your friend. (His friends are at the big
phone companies.)
2. Public safety is just another excuse to implement a technology that
may wind up being used by Big Brother to control our lives.
There is a trade-off between efficiency and liberty.
Our nation's founding fathers realized this when they set up three
branches of government. It is certainly not the most efficient way
to organize a government, a benevolent dictator is far more efficient.
But it is a good way to prevent someone from gaining too much power
and taking away our liberty, and that is why they did it that way.
What efficiency do we gain by having the government know where every
VoIP phone is located? Only this, clueless individuals who have no
idea where they are can call 911 and help will be on the way to their
location.
What might we have to lose by having the government know where every
VoIP phone is located? Only our liberty! If anyone should ever gain
control of our government the tools would be in place for him to know
about every communication, who participated and where they are.
I say it is far better to let those few clueless individuals risk
removal from the gene pool than to risk the liberty of everyone!
And anyone who does not agree is a F___ing Idiot.
Indeed. I'm with a provider that AFAIK doesn't offer emergency call services, and it doesn't really phase me... my ATA actually came with the emergency number preconfigured to route through to the normal landline, which we're effectively forced to buy as it is...
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
The AC is right, and you are a dumbass. Vonage offers 911 service to all of their customers, and that's what you've got. But what the FCC is requiring is that they implement E911. With plain 911, you will get routed to a local emergency number, but the dispatch won't know your address. With E911, they will know your address.
A winner is you. Thread closed!
Oh, wait...(eyeing Vonage ad with the "no geeks" tagline), never mind!
I don't see how it is not possible now (from outside USA) to sign up for a whole lot of VoIP accounts, set the addresses to the area you want to fuck and then call out the services via thousands of automated calls.
Being that you're under threat already, I would have thought throwing away your 911 service wouldn't be too smart, but hey...
-={ Security does not exist - give up }=-
I'm not talking about triangulating. That would mean determining a phone's exact location based on how close it is to each of three (or more) towers, which could be very useful, but all I'm talking about it determining which one tower your phone is closest to, and connecting the call to the appropriate 911 facility for that tower.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Hmm i wonder what the hold up is?
Surely isn't AT&T or SBC.
Which works great unless the person who dials 911 can't speak or is unable to transmit all the information before being disconnected. THIS is what the "big brotherism" is there for, which seems to happen at least often enough to warrant it.
If something happens it's much faster to dial 911 than to dial 911 AND then tell the person where you are.
There is also the possibility of the operator simply not understanding you (at least not the first time), which if you have an accent or a lisp is a definite possibility.
Dunno what it's "supposed" to do, but I know that both last week and about six months ago when I dialed 911 to report DUIs, the calls were routed to a regional highway patrol emergency center which then connected me to the closest highway patrol station*. Made sense the first time, as I was driving on the freeway, but the second time I was driving a block from my house. Really, I don't see why Vonnage should have to provide specific location when apparently Cingular can't be bothered to do so.
* the first time a bored operator took the description of the car and, when I offered the license plate number and freeway exit we were near, said "nah, description's enough". The second one took make and license, but hand no answer when I asked how the highway patrol was going to see him when he's on surface streets, and claimed to have no idea how to route me to the LAPD. Good thing I wasn't being murdered or something.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
While in corpus for a tour of their emergency operations center, I noticed all of the phones were VOIP cisco models. Not sure who the provider is, or if the VOIP phones are interfaced to a PBX. It would be interesting to see if any 911 services are run over VOIP ( I know that vonage would not provide this, but some other carrier.)
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Correction: Verizon, not Cingular.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Most Vonage adapters will presumably be kept indoors. GPS doesn't work very well indoors.
If you read this, you'll see that earlier this month Congress was moving to pass legislation delaying the mandate.
Indeed, I read not long ago an article that said Congress had indeed passed legislation noting that VOIP providers that could not comply were to be allowed an extension of up to one year where they would be allowed to continue aquiring customers. Sadly, I cannot find that article anywhere or other mention of the legislation passing.
So I am wondering if this story is a non-event as Vonage will just get an extension? You would have thought the article would mention that, but it's not like were reading a Blog where the writer has to know anything about anything I guess.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...who run those really cool shiny black cabinets at the NAP of the Americas in Miami?
It really isn't Vonage's fault. Many PSAPs do not want to deal with VOIP calls at all until everything is right. That means no access to the actual number that represents 911 to you. Since not all PSAPs accept VOIP calls (some don't even accept wireless calls), Vonage did what the could and routed to the only thing they had access to.
E911 for VOIP is very difficult to do. Another thing to remember is that the VOIP providers were given 90 days to get over 4000 PSAPs tested. This may not be a big issue for the smaller carriers becuase they don't need to worry about the whole country because their customers are in certain geographical areas. Vonage has the most customers right now. Each of those 4000 PSAPs has to be tested manually.
I work in the industry. Personally I don't recommend giving up a land line for convience if you want to always be sure 911 will work. Wireless and VOIP will not work reliably during a disaster.
Why is it that VoIP companies where only given 10 months to solve the 911 problem and cell phone companies had 10+ years before they had reliable 911 service?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Sounds like Intrado. You're not from Colorado, are you?
I work for a telco. Implementing E911 took us a year and was an enormous fiasco. I wouldn't say we have things ironed out yet as our submissions to 911 are still often ignored or mishandled. All our interaction with the 911 system is supposed to go through a main competitor--a large national megacorp. The data we submit to the 911 system literally hops through several pit stops across the country: Washington, Kansas, Florida, Ohio, etc., and eventually back again. It can take weeks to finally make it, if it doesn't get lost at any of the stops along the way.
At times, our competitor seems to go out of their way to make the process insane. Our internal audits of the system routinely show less than 90% accuracy in the data they pass along (despite 100% accuracy in the data even they acknowledge receiving).
I have personally demonstrated to authorities that there are often better odds of obtaining useful emergency response information by typing the originating phone number into google.
We have the ability to display subscriber data (including maps with complete physical plant schematics, driving directions, or whatever to the premise) for any incoming phone call. We have begged and pleaded to be able to pass that information directly to the 911 ops center on a regular basis. We have been routinely rejected. We have taken our case to the police department, the municipal authorities, even the press. We have a filing cabinet filled with transcripts documenting our efforts. Nobody cares. We have finally given up.
We are not a VoIP provider, or a cell provider. We are not a CLEC, or some fly by night. We are the ILEC with a 100 year history. We successfully maintained 911 service for more than a decade before the beauracracy that is E911 came along. In the past few years millions of dollars have been poured into new E911 deployments in our municipality. Outside vendors, consultants, advisors, etc. have been splashed around like crazy. The money flying around is pretty impressive, and less than 1% of it has anything to do with public safety. It's all pork and politics.
There is no oversight, auditing, or control that checks to see if the system is working. I think people would be stunned at how many calls each day show up on the 9-1-1 operators' screens with no useful information about originating location. Even worse than missing data is incorrect data. There is no process to verify the accuracy of legacy data, and no enforcement of accuracy even when the data is known to be bad.
Two guys with a google maps account could do a better job of it than the hundreds that currently make a living pretending to provide 9-1-1 service to our city.
Vonage's 911 problems right now are not technical. They are political. That was clear from the start. There are billions of dollars at stake. In fact, there are billions of dollars at stake for each of the dozens fo competitors Vonage has to rely upon to make 911 work. A working system is not in any of those competitors' best interests.
How about a network protocol for providing network clients with appropriate 911 location info? I.e. when you log on to a network, the gateway (or whatever - I'm no expert on IP) can upon request tell the client its location for purposes of being located in an emergency.
Of course, this wouldn't be done in a day (neither was making E911 in the first place), but its adoption could be sped up by Vonage/Skype/whoever not let their clients make ordinary calls if such a service could not be found on the network.
Sounds like Intrado or TCS. I would bet on TCS since their e911 platform is called xypoint, and the poster used that terminology instead of lat/long.
However there's another bit that I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is Vonage did a test roll-out of E911 in Massachusetts a year or so ago that was successful and they've stated that they would roll out the E911 service to all markets as it became possible. The problem is that the telcos control the E911 network and only with cooperation can they roll out their enhanced service to other markets. So at the moment, some Vonage customers have E911 but most don't.
I think the FCC is being patently unfair at this point and either through it's own ignornace or through more malicious intent it is positioned to cost Vonage any real chance to compete in the telecommunications market. But what about Skype? What about Net2Phone? What about TimeWarner Cable digital phone? (though TWC has cable lines to your house and I don't believe their service is portable)
Is Vonage being highlighted here or is this entire FCC ruling against Vonage in particular? (admittedly, I haven't yet RTFA)
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Being a good citizen and using the correct means to try to make the world a safer place doesn't work. Let me be doing 15mph over on a rural highway and I might show up on America's Most Wanted. I call in a drunk driver and they barely care.
The first time I called I expected police to swoop out of nowhere like what happens in the movies. That doesn't happen....
People are stupid, it's a fact of life.
Two people are out on a lake, in a canoe. Two morons can't swim. Boat starts to sink so they call 911 from a cell phone. They didn't know what lake they were on or what city/town they were in. Dispatcher can't help them because there are several lakes in the area. Morons drown.
I got an idea, let's blame the phone company!
Really as long as you know where you are and can convey that to the dispatcher, they can get help to you. If it's routed to another state, it may take a little longer, but as long as you can say "I'm at 1234 Main Street whatever, XX" then they can get help to you. Sure I think it's important that calls get routed to the right dispatcher and they have your address in case you can't talk, but people die even while using the current POTS 911. I think people are blowing this way out of proportion.
I kept getting harassed by Vonage to enter a real address. I told them I lived out of the country so E911 service was moot. However, I HAD to give an address. Completely (*&# stupid.
Do American politicians and lawmakers think Americans are SO stupid that they can't figure out that the VOIP phone they're paying for won't work for E911 service even after they're given warning after disclaimer after warning? I guess so.
www.clarke.ca
And how will I know if it works if I don't? Had I not tested it, I could have dialed 911 during an emergency and been connected to a receptionist. Illegal or not, I will do what I have to to prepare for my safety.
Contrary to what has been posted here, Vonage is reporting that 90% of their customers have E911.
I must also say that the back-end folks are not necessarily being deliberately uncooperative. They have/had a general lack of knowledge about newer technology (not their job) and need to be carefully walked through things step-by-step. (To be fair, VoIP folks often come in with a lack of knowledge about safety and legacy telecom operations and preconceived notions about how things SHOULD work. I include myself in that.) I also found a general post-9/11 reticence to share public-safety infrastructure information with "unknown" entities.
My county goverment http://www.countycourthouse.org/main.htm is having an election for Enhanced Wireless 911 Service Fees on December 13, 2005. This will add $6 per year to each cell phone bill to pay for the fees and equipment to support location of cell phones to within 100 feet if you call 911. We have already spent a lot of money, via grant, to map Bartlesville with GPS so that the co-ordinates returned via the phone system will mean something. It was amazing how much the maps are off, when compared to GPS. Our 911 co-ordinator has one of those special "military" GPS in her vehicle that gives position to an inch? a foot? She show me how the map and her tracking as she drove to our Kiwanis meeting were offset, She drove through the middle of every building according to the map.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Welcome to the U.S.S.A. What did you expect in this extreme level of statism where the government is allowed to intervene in the economy ?
I think it's pretty much agreed upon that at this point, E911 in cell phones don't work as well as they claim. Example: http://www.dailynewstribune.com/localRegional/view .bg?articleid=65293
Add to the problem that on most college campuses, 911 directs you to Campus Security rather than emergency services... One of my friends had a fire start in the office next to them. They tried to call 911, got campus security, and got put on hold. Thank goodness for cell phones... 10 minutes after the fire was put out, the campus security got back on the line and asked the state of the emergency.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Some phones will show it to you. Some other phones will have programming interfaces for the GPS, but no GPS program. The majority will be as you say. Cautious consumers, as usual, will be rewarded for their effort.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
All the handwaving in the world won't change the facts - Vonage mislead it's customers and at least one death has resulted. That is what is important here.
Not because of 911 per se, but just because of a variety of problems.
First, about a third of the time calls don't connect correctly. Usually I get an echo of some sort.
Second, and this isn't Vonage's fault per se... but my internet is a cable modem. If the power goes out so does the cable modem. Well not my cable modem... it's on a UPS. But the cable signal goes off line so having it on a UPS doesn't really matter.
Third, and this is Vonage's fault.
They offered a $50 rebate. I sent it in. They sent it back saying I didn't write down my MAC address. Well I did, as I had photocopies of the paperwork. I sent it back in. And they never sent me the money.
Overall, I'm not happy with VOIP. Just the concept of it, and then on top of that the shitty behavior of Vonage.
nt/
Here is the article claiming the bill passed. Not sure what to make of the latest story in light of what this is saying.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley