VoIP Providers Given 120 Days to Provide 911 Service

linuxwrangler writes "According to this SFGate article, federal regulators have given VoIP providers 120 days to provide 911 service to their customers. The vote came after testimony from people including a Florida woman who had her infant die after being unable to call 911 from her internet phone. VoIP providers are also required to notify their customers of the deadline and of the limitations of VoIP 911 service."

Re:Now the question is...

[ciroknight]

Simple really; the cell network has a seperate channel specifically for 911 service, or at least that's how it was explained to me.

When you don't pay your bill, they block you out of all the channels except the 911 channel. Maybe VoIP providers can use this as a guideline.

I have vonage...

[infinite9]

They're already in compliance. You should read the disclaimers though. Every other paragraph goes out of its way to say that this isn't really 911 service. I guess the problem is that it's tied to your voip box. I could pack it in my suitcase and take it to florida on vacation. if I plug it into my mother's cable modem line, my phone number will ring there. Unfortunately, if I dial 911, I get the 911 dispatch center near my home in the chicago area. You can't really fault them for doing it. Maybe they could do some sort of ip address geographic lookup. But I doubt it would be reliable.

8x8 Already Has It

[cyngus]

Just to plug a company I invest in, 8x8 or Packet8 already has E911 because they use Level3's network. So the message is, use Level3 for your network, have E911, and make me money by increasing Level3's profits! :-)

Re:Now the question is...

[Otto]

Granted, I have always paid my bill so I can't tell you for sure. But upon moving into an apartment, I have no dial tone and thus cannot call anywhere until it is hooked up. I assumed it would be the same upon disconnection. No dial tone = no call

True, but a lot of places have stopped cutting out dial tone when there's no service available. When I moved into my apartment several years ago, the place had tone. It couldn't get incoming calls and it could call anywhere (you'd get a recorded message telling you the phone had no service). The only numbers I could dial were emergency numbers and the phone company in order to request service.

I've moved since then, and my new apartment does lack tone (I've switched to cell entirely), however that's just a how this local telco does it, not every telco does that anymore.

Re:Now the question is...

[KD7JZ]

Sorry. Incorrect. The reason this works is the system will allow a handset to register on the switch serving the nearest tower, but will block call completion unless the call goes to 911 or in many cases you can charge a call to a credit card, although the rates are quite high.

Re:I have vonage...

[SoCalChris]

I am also a Vonage customer, and don't get the problem either. I've had to call 911 twice in the two years I've had Vonage (Once for a fire next door, once for a crazy man screaming at and beating his child in the street). Both times, my call was answered by the police dispatcher, and the police and fire were there within minutes. The main difference was that I had to tell them the address I was at.

Vonage makes it very clear about how their 911 service works. If their service isn't good enough for what you need, just get a regular phone, and plug it into the POTS jack. You will have regular 911 service from there, and you don't need POTS service to be able to call 911.

Re:120 days....

[Valdrax]

Currently, with many VoIP providers, you can log in to their website and explicitly tell them where your phone is. If you move, you update this info. The order currently only mandates that user-supplied info be used but strongly suggests that they expect automatic configuration in the future.

As for the traceroute question, the answer is, "Yes." However, I expect to see some resistance on this from the other telecom providers since it means that there will have to be an automated mechanism for finding out what physical line an IP address is connected to that is queriable by third parties. I can imagine all sorts of abuse for this sort of thing, but it seems to be a necessity to ensure emergency services.

Re:Most already have it...

[KD7JZ]

The biggest technical problem is that most e-911 calls go on a dedicated trunk to the 911 call center. There is no 'phone number' associated with that line. So what vonage was doing was just getting a listed directory number for the police in a given jurisdiction and forwarding calls to that number. (often not answered at night etc). This order will require the VOIP provider to coordinate with local telephone companies to have the VOIP 911 calls get delivered over those dedicated trunks.

Re:I have vonage...

[Ralusp]

No, they're not compliant. From section 2.2 of the Vonage TOS:

Vonage does offer a 911-type dialing service in the U.S. (but may not offer such service in Canada) that is different in a number of important ways from traditional 911 service. ... When you dial 911, your call is routed from the Vonage network to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or local emergency service personnel designated for the address that you listed at the time of activation. You acknowledge and understand that when you dial 911 from your Vonage equipment it is intended that you will be routed to the general telephone number for the PSAP or local emergency service provider (which may not be answered outside business hours), and may not be routed to the 911 dispatcher(s) who are specifically designated to receive incoming 911 calls using traditional 911 dialing.

I use Vonage and I have 911 service

[PenguinBoyDave]

When I subscribed I had to have Vonage configure my 911 service. It took some time, but it ended up working out. The key is this though...if my Broadband connection goes down for any reason, so does my 911 service. SO...I have a stand-by cdll phone just in case.

Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is here. At least with Vonage, the make sure you understand you need to configure 911. User responsibility...go figure.

Re:120 days....

[bfields]

Since I can plug a VoIP phone in anywhere, how is the dispatch going to know where you are like they would with a POTS line? Run a traceroute??

From the article:

Under the order, VoIP carriers must provide a way for customers to update their location and callback numbers when they travel. Failure to update that information would cause an emergency operator to assume the call was coming from the last registered location.

The order also requires VoIP carriers to explain to their customers the capabilities and limitations of the emergency response service they are getting with their Internet phones. Connection to a 911 operator, for example, would not be possible for a VOIP customer if there is a power failure or loss of Internet connection.

So I get the impression the relatively straightforward cases, like VOIP on a home DSL line, are expected to be handled automatically, but the more complicated cases--tunneling your connection back through your home network or whatever--fall under some sort of "well, we warned you, and gave you a way to tell us where you were, it's not our fault if you didn't bother" defense.

--Bruce Fields

Re:I have vonage...

[rpdillon]

Vonage specifically tells you you will never get through to a 911 call center. They say (over and over) it will patch you through to a local fire/police dispatcher, NOT a 911 call center. That said, I've never dialed 911 in my life (Vonage or otherwise) so I can't say whether it works as advertised or not.

How about reading the article?

[whoever57]

TELL THEM WHERE YOU ARE WHEN YOU CALL.

Yes, it is really useful to tell a recording where you are! If you RTFA:

Waller said she got a recording when she used her Internet phone to call 911 after her daughter stopped breathing last March.

Re:120 days....

[tgd]

Actually the packaging mentions it a number of times... as does the install process.

The florida case was the woman's fault. Nothing more.

Re:Infant died?

[grommit]

Yes, it most likely would have been dead but there's this new thing that people are doing called CPR. It helps keep people's body alive long enough to get them to a hospital. I hear that quite a few people have been saved by it. Maybe you've heard of it too?

Besides, how quickly do you answer your front door? The lady had to make the 911 call on her VOIP service, hear the recording, and run outside and across the lawn to the neighbors house while carrying the baby. Then she had to wait for them to answer the door so she could explain the situation and get them to call 911 on their phone. This could have easily taken a few minutes. A few minutes where she could have been doing that new fangled CPR thing.

Ask any paramedic and that few minutes could easily mean the difference between life and death, especially for an infant.

Re:I really don't get the problem

[pavera]

You are dieing or being mugged, or robbed, or kidnapped and you just break away for a couple seconds.
You can't talk.
the 911 service works in such a way that just by dialing those 3 magic numbers the authorities get your location and will arrive shortly thereafter.
with your call center idea, you are dead and by the time someone finds you there are no leads...
with the 911 service at least some of the time the authorities can get there to save you.

Re:Most already have it...

[pavera]

Technically there are "phone numbers" associated with those lines, they are just heavily guarded secrets of the ILECs, the only people who know them. 911 call centers have regular numbers associated with them (the association is held in the PSAP database), and when you dial 911, the ILECs switch does a lookup in the PSAP database, finds which call center is responsible for your call, and routes it there. Then when the call hits the call center, their system dips the MSAG database with your phone number and pulls up your street info...

That is the problem with this ruling. It mandates that the VoIP providers provide full 911 service, but doesn't require any cooperation from their main competitors the ILECs. So, if the ILECs choose not to give out the dedicated 911 numbers so that VoIP providers can route directly to them, or if they decide to charge exhorbitant fees (more likely), the FCC has given them a free get out of jail card here. The ILECs by simply not doing anything can put all the VoIP providers out of business now.

Re:Most already have it...

[KD7JZ]

Your description may be accurate for many (most) PSAPs served by RBOCs (the baby bells). However, there are 1500 other local telephone companies that serve many rural areas. (I happen to work for one.) I know that not all the PSAPs in our areas have directory numbers associated with them.

Too Stupid to activate 911 Service

[shanmoon]

I have Vonage VOIP.

Vonage makes it abundantly clear that you must activate 911 Service by providing address information. You'd have to be an absolute idiot to miss this. It's prominently displayed in red at the top of your account dashboard when you log into the site. A glaring red insert is in the box with your phone adapter right on top. It's all over their website for new customers, and everywhere in their FAQs.

I activated my 911 service as soon as I signed up, 'cause it was made imminently clear to me that I needed to do so. By the time my adapter arrived, my 911 service was in place.

If you're too damn stupid to activat the service, I just see it as evolution in action. Hopefully you were too damn dumb to breed yet too.

Re:Infant died?

[SecurityGuy]

RTFA. She did.

Finding a neighbor with a phone can take a few minutes. Sometimes (like during the middle of the day) not many people are home. During the middle of the night, not many are awake and some who are will not answer. A few minutes is a lifetime (or the end of one) when someone's not breathing.

Re:120 days....

[gregmac]

They've got everyone's zip code and (I would assume) a directory of each zip code's appropriate 911 response center. How hard is it to make these ends meet?

Well, the issue is that VoIP is mobile. You can take your voip router at home and plug it in at a friend's down the street or on the other side of the globe, and it'll work. Meanwhile, the 911 operator thinks you're at home.

That's why part of this says that the VoIP providers have to have a way for users to update their location.

Of course, I don't know what happens if they're in europe (where emergency service is 112 or something) or any other country.

Re:Implications for Skype?

[burnsy]

Looks like Skype is involved too. The submitted a request to be excluded from the regulations claming that most of their users are mobiel and do not use a handset, but since they do interconnect to the PSTN it looks like they will be are required to offer E911.

Skyped offered a statement day offering to work with the FCC on E911.

More information about case

[GeoGreg]

The Florida woman whose case is described in the SFgate article did not misconfigure her phone it seems. According to this this story [wesh.com]:

"[W]hen Waller called 911 through Vonage, her broadband phone service provider, all she got was a non-emergency sheriff's recording. She ran to a neighbor's house and finally got through to a 911 dispatcher.

So, Vonage connected her to a non-emergency number that is not answered 24/7. Not a good idea. I know that in some cities (such as Denver, where I live), there is no emergency number that is widely published. I can't look one up; 911 is the only number the police provide.

Vonage Terms of Service and 911

[ceenvee703]

Not sure if anyone's pointed out that, even if you properly set up Vonage's 911 service, their terms of service clearly state that you WON'T be connected to the same 911 center as a landline or cell phone...

When you dial 911, your call is routed from the Vonage network to the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or local emergency service personnel designated for the address that you listed at the time of activation. You acknowledge and understand that when you dial 911 from your Vonage equipment it is intended that you will be routed to the general telephone number for the PSAP or local emergency service provider (which may not be answered outside business hours), and may not be routed to the 911 dispatcher(s) who are specifically designated to receive incoming 911 calls using traditional 911 dialing. Vonage relies on third parties for the forwarding of information underlying such routing, and accordingly Vonage and its third party provider(s) disclaim any and all liability or responsibility in the event such information or routing is incorrect. As described herein, this 911-type dialing currently is NOT the same as traditional 911 or E911 dialing, and at this time, does not necessarily include all of the capabilities of traditional 911 dialing.

my emphasis...

Re:VOIP providers don't need this mandate, Bells d

[cbr2702]

That's in the mandate as well. From the article:

The FCC order, approved by a 4-0 vote, requires local phone companies to provide access to their E-911 networks -- those that enable emergency operators to identify the location and telephone number of the caller -- to any telecommunications carrier.

Which I think is supposed to mean that the 911 system would be opened up as well.

Re:GPS?

[Gaewyn L Knight]

GPS is not an option indoors which limits it to less than 5% of all VoIP phone/device locations.

Re:120 days....

[Shishak]

Wrong,

The PSAP information (911 Tandem switch) is all located in the Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG). All the VoIP providers need to do is buy a subscription to the LERG from Telcordia and they will have all the information they need. The problem is, that in order to connect to the PSAP you need to be a CLEC with an interconnect Agreement with the RBOC (Verizon, SBC) for the LATA. You also need to build dedicated, diverse trunks into the PSAP switch. Since most VoIP providers are virtual phone companies, they don't have facilities in the LATA where their customers are and therefore they can't build trunks into the PSAP.

Connecting to the PSAP is the easy part, finding out the address of one of my DSL customers that I give a dynamic IP address to is the hard part. I predict a lot of police/fire showing up at my NOC because that is the address on record for the IP.

Re:120 days....

[srleffler]

In many places, the police etc. will tell you not to do this.

Already solved, POTS line + $100 device

[micron]

I have been using VoIP for over a year at home, and I enjoy the technology. I run it over my cable modem. Comparing how reliable my cable service is, vs how reliable my POTS line is; I knew that I needed to keep a minimum POTS line active, just in case.

The device that I use is called a Sipura 3000 analog adapter. It allows my cordless phone system to plug into ethernet for VoIP. Another nice feature is that I can plug my POTS line in to it as well.

I have programmed the device to route 411 and 911 calls made from my cordless phones on to the POTS line instead of the VoIP line. That gives me full, reliable 911 service without having to inform my guests that some phones are for dialing, and other phones are for 911. Every phone can reach 911.

Another nice feature of this system is that it also routes all calls to the POTS line in the event of 1) VoIP service outage or 2) general power outage.

There are also programmable features for routing specific calls to specific gateways based on charateristics that you define. Gateway 0 is for POTS, gateways 1-3 (there are more than 2, can't remember the upper limit) are for VoIP services.

If your VoIP provider allows BYOD, it is definitally worth checking out.

btw: the TX case in this mess is interesting. I was in Houston on business when it happened. The customer in question was interviewed on the news. The customer claimed that he had no knowledge that Vonage did not handle 911. Seeing all the warnings that Vonage give you, it would actually take some effort to ignore the warnings. No sympathy.