Slashdot Mirror
Vonage Puts VoIP 911 Caller on Hold
kamikaze-Tech writes "It is being reported on the Vonage Forums that last month when Loren Veltkamp's
Chanhassen, Minnesota home caught on fire, he immediately called 9-1-1 using
Vonage. Unfortunately,
Vonage put him on hold, causing a delay in the response from emergency
workers. By the time fire crews arrived, the fire had become a five-alarm blaze.
The house was a total loss."
This "article" is a duplicate thread on the Vonage Forum. The original thread has much more information.
This is no different than the 911 service on PSTN (regular phone service).
I've been put on hold at least 50-60% of the time I've called.
They're understaffed.
Was this his only phone?
Any reason he didn't have access to another phone?
Traditionally you exit your burning house ASAP and call from a house next door...
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
They claim to be associating establishing a physical location with each E911, at so many counties per week. Yet someone on the blog points out in Ohio they're moving at a snail's pace and only in 4 rural counties. Sounds like my office, let's process ~1,500 applications, which average about 30 minutes each, by one person, who is being phased out due to lack of work. It done be amazing.
"please click on 1 if you have just seen bigfoot, click on 2 if a wolf has lept through your living room window, click 3 if you believe CowboyNeal is lurking under your bed, click 4 if you laughed so hard at the last South Park that you are choking on a cheezy poof, click 5 if you are so offended by the last South Park you are choking on a cheezy poof, click 6 if you think The Lakers is a stupid name for a team that moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles where there are no lakes, click 7 if your house is on fire and your children have flown, click 8 if you are suffering a medical emergency, click 9 if you are "dying zerelda, dying zerelda, die, die, die, die, die, die!!!" or stay on the line and listen to some light jazz until your connection is mysteriously dropped."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
try calling 911 on a POTS line or cell phone in any major city and see for yourself.
Tried to follow the link in the story, but the server put me on hold....
It is being reported on the Vonage Forums that last month when Loren Veltkamp's Chanhassen, Minnesota home caught on fire, he immediately called 9-1-1 using Vonage. Unfortunately, Vonage put him on hold,
Next at 6: Slashdot links to Vonage-forum, forum webserver puts thousands on hold and THEN catches fire.
PS:Houses usually don't "catch" fire, like they're standing around and fire lands on them out of the blue. How'd the guy's house actually catch fire? Why didn't he have an extinguisher? Why didn't he hang up the phone and DIAL AGAIN?
PPS:The above is half serious and half spoofing the typical "apologist" line.
Please help metamoderate.
I live about 6 minutes away from chanhassen, and the last time I called 911 I was put on hold. I called from a cell phone not voip so I'm geussing its just the local emergency services fault.
I think their new commercial should show a guy getting Vonage and then his house burns down, and then they say, "People do stupid things. Going with Vonage is one of them."
You can usually do both- just call your local phoneco and ask for a emergency-only line that only dials 911 and 0. Also known as Basic Dial Tone Service, it will cost you someplace between $0-$12/month, depending on whether or not they force you to get local dialing with it or not, and what taxes apply. Don't forget to plug in an old fashioned WIRED phone to the line, so that you have service in case of a power outage as well.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
They're giving him $20 credit and 7% off all his future 911 calls.
This should surprise no one. 911 is not anywhere near as reliable as you think it could or should be. A friend of mine nearly cut off this thumb with a chop saw. He ran into the house, called 911, and .... it was busy. Rather than dick around bleeding (drip, drip), he called the one person he knew he could rely on: his office secretary (three cheers for secretaries!) She called the local ambulance service, they picked up, took him to the hospital, and after a little tendon reattachment surgery and months of rehab, he was good as new. No thanks to 911.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Flanders drives into his driveway and Bart panics, pleading with Lisa to leave. Instead she climbs the stairs, but Bart warns her she'll be trapped. He sees Ned looking angry, walking with an ax.
Bart: [watching Flanders] An ax. He's got an ax! I'll save you, Lisa! [tries to walk on his broken leg, falls back] Uh, I'll save you by calling the police. [dials 911]
Voice: Hello, and welcome to the Springfield Police Department Resc-u- Fone[tm]. If you know the name of the felony being committed, press one. To choose from a list of felonies, press two. If you are being murdered or calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line.
Bart: [growls, punches some numbers]
Voice: You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.
If you are ever woken up by the smell of smoke/fire in your house, you have just about three minutes to get out before you die. Basicly, the amount of smoke and gasses in the air that are enough to wake you up are jsut slightly les then it takes to kill you.
Also, a tiny fire can turn life threatening in jsut a couple of minutes. Fire is not somehitn to be fucked with.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Actually, speaking as a former firefighter, it isn't common for folks to misunderstand how dangerous a fire can be. Most folks freak completely out. They panic, and make mistakes they should know better than to do.
Small grease fires take out a whole kitched because the panicked homeowner throws water on it, instead of something like flour.
It's simple Fight or Flight syndrome. Most folks run for it (flight), but without applying a thought process to what they are doing. Those that try to deal (fight) with it aren't usually trained to deal with it properly. Sometimes even those that ARE trained get caught by something they didn't expect.
Fires are nothing to mess around with. Those that have a healthy respect for them can deal with it once they are properly trained. Those that don't, tend to die, even with training. Just check out the number of firefighters that die each year due to really dumb things like buildings falling on them.
Most firefighter deaths (that aren't due to traffic accidents or heart attacks) were completely preventable. There's usually a cover-up, for the officers in charge, all the way down to even the victim's themselves. Nobody wants to tarnish a hero's legacy, even if said "hero" had their head up their ass and was in a place they should have known better than to be, or was doing something they shouldn't have done. The public doesn't end up knowing, but most of it ends up getting caught on tape by some bystander, and then the government ends up buying the tape rights so that it doesn't get on the 11 o'clock news. Then, they show it as training video, and tell us "See, these guys are dumbfucks, and so is their commanding officer". And yet, more than half the class would still make the same mistake.