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."

Comments

Re:Wait... I just got an e-mail on the 26th that s

[terrymr]

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.

Shouldn't the cell phone companies provide this???

[Lord Jester]

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?

Worked for me...

[222]

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 ;).

But where do you draw the line?

[Py to the Wiz]

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.