Vonage 911 Deadline Passed 315
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."
Profit? (Score:2, Interesting)
Packet8 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fines (Score:3, Interesting)
Works for me (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
indeed (Score:4, Interesting)
Simple Database? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wait... I just got an e-mail on the 26th that s (Score:5, Interesting)
Shouldn't the cell phone companies provide this??? (Score:4, Interesting)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Shouldn't the cell phone companies provide this (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Packet8 (Score:2, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)
Cell networks IIRC are required to route 911 calls nomatter whether the phone is activated on the network or not. VoIP ATA's could then just have a cell phone for e911 usage.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not have a phone jack on the VoIP adapter and require it to be physically connected to a phone line? I'd imagine that most people who get VoIP and drop their phone service still have the physical jacks and the physical connections to the network. I'm pretty sure phone companies are required to provide 911 service even if the line is not in service (nonpayment, etc). The box would just need to pass any calls to 911 through to POTS, forcing the telco to take care of routing the call. This would have the added benefit of working even if the box is connected at another location.
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!
The POTS connection could solve this one too by adding a couple relays to the VoIP adaptor. When power is applied to the VoIP box, the relays are switched to connect the phones to the VoIP hardware. In the event of a network failure, the firmware switches off the relays and the phones are connected directly to POTS. Same deal for power failures. Power loss to the VoIP adaptor, relays click off, and the phones are directly connected to the (hopefully still working) POTS network.
Re:they have it in Canada (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Packet8 (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently, on my way to San Francisco I saw a car that had driven off the highway, and into a ditch (wheels were still spinning). So I called 911. By the time I was able to get through to a real person, I had crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and my phone promptly died. Being on hold for that long (5-10 minutes) is just UNACCEPTABLE. This was at about 1:30 in the morning. So once I arrived at my destination, I pluged my phone in and called 911 again. Again it was routed to the CHP dispatch center in Vallejo.
On the other hand, I was walking buy a building on fire, in San Francisco, a few month ago. After asking a woman who worked there, to ensure the building was empty, I called 911 from my cell phone. This time the call got routed to a San Francisco emergency dispatch center. At which point I was able to get a few details to the dispatcher before my call was dropped (Verizon's network is not that great out here).
The lesson I've learned: it's a better idea to find a landline, than to try and call 911 from a cell phone.
Honestly, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Vonage (or other VoIP providers). 911 service from cell phone providers is pretty lousy.
Re:Fines (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Fines (Score:2, Interesting)
The cost differential has nothing to do with 911 services, it has to do with antiquated POTS reliance and a lot of loss-leading services. Simply put, VoIP is more efficient.
Lastly, Vonage isn't stealing customers. They and others are convincing others to join (much of that is based on the price-points). The fact that people are no longer bound to stick with one of the Bells in traditional POTS format is due to competition and innovation.