FCC: VoIP Providers Must Provide 911 Services 496
acadiel writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the FCC will require VoIP providers to provide 911 location services. This will mean extra $$$ that the VoIP providers will have to put out, which ultimately means extra $$$ that the consumer will have to put out. This is the first step in regulating an industry that should have been left alone..." I hope network end-points and physical location aren't going to be too tightly linked; one of the appeals of VoIP is using it from anywhere that has an adequate Internet connection.
Overseas? (Score:4, Insightful)
Cell phone (Score:5, Insightful)
not a big fan of regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Where does it end... (Score:0, Insightful)
M
Re:God damned government (Score:3, Insightful)
"Planes, Trains, and Automobiles"?
This article is just wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cell phone (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:God damned government (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not sure what this means? I assume from the rest of the post you want govt to leave the business alone. Standarization is usually good for competition, as long as the govt. isn't the one doing the standardizing, but instead representatives of companies that are actually competent in their field.
911 is kinda important (Score:5, Insightful)
C
Re:Where does it end... (Score:1, Insightful)
Needs to be done (Score:5, Insightful)
People expect - and reasonably so - that they can pick up any phone in the country, dial 911, and get an emergency operator.
And how long is it going to be before people start installing VoIP payphones, if they haven't already? What about pre-wired apartment complexes offering cheap phone service?
Use of VoIP isn't limited to geeks with a dedicated and separate VoIP setup anymore.
Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um...this is 911 we're talking about here. I pay 25 cents on my phone bill for 911 service. God forbid, I ever have to use 911 - but I'm thankful it is there. Good for the FCC.
911 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This article is just wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This article is just wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
911 service is simply a phone call to 911. The question is whether or not the authorities can physically locate the phone being used to dial 911.
911 isn't very useful in true emergency situations if your location can't even be traced. If you're being burglared (sp?), you don't have time to tell them your address. You call 911, say, "There's a burglar in my home, HELP!", and run and hide. You don't wanna be caught by the burglar on the phone trying to give them directions to your house.
Re:How truly screwed up is this ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How truly screwed up is this ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Think less like "headphones and microphone at a pc" and more like "normal-looking phone on a desk" [typepad.com].
If and when these become commonplace in the home, you're going to expect it to work in a similar fashion to how your current phone works. Particularly, when you dial 911, you'd like the call routed to a local, nearby 911 service dispatcher, so they can get help to you quickly.
Why Regulate? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it should be left alone, people can make their own decisions. If they choose a VoIP provider without 911 then it's their problem (or perhaps they use it as a second line and have 911 on their POTS).
Re:This article is just wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
M
Re:Where does it end... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overseas? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the FCC gave a result they want, they have not yet mandated any particular solution. If US providers are being used for any portion of the communication they are potentially subject to FCC regulation.
This needs to be regulated! (Score:5, Insightful)
The stressful nature of emergencies makes it hard to think and people have it drilled into them to dial 911 in an emergency. If 911 doesn't work, the situation could get much worse.
Just imagine dialing 911 because someone's bleeding out on the floor and getting an advertisement asking you if you'd like to buy this number.
Re:Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reliability issues??? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a VoIP provider doesn't have to offer 911 and it doesn't offer it then I hope it is immune from lawsuits regarding 911. People will also hopefully keep some other means of calling 911 then. However, if a VoIP provider offers 911 people might use that as their only means of calling for help in an emergency and if it doesn't work someone may die, there may be huge lawsuits, etc. I'm sure this will happen soon enough.
Re:Overseas? (Score:4, Insightful)
The end user might not care, but that end user will seriously cause problems for their friends and family. It means to call a VoIP-to-phone user from a normal PTSN phone would be an international call to wherever the PTSN-to-VoIP transfer happens. If that transfer happens in the USA, then the VoIP company is a phone service provider and they'll have to comply with FCC rules.
Re:Overseas? (Score:4, Insightful)
Emergency services don't work like that (Score:4, Insightful)
A true majority-rule democracy would do just that. Everyone would have a direct vote on anything important and whatever the public said, would go. That's not how it works. We are a federal republic that is very democratic. People have a strong say in the government, and direct vote on many things, but their word is not final and they don't get to control everything directly.
Subscribing to police and fire services (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for less government control and red tape, but emergency services is one of those areas which I don't mind having it mandated.
Re:All phone services should have 911 access! (Score:5, Insightful)
You have 15 seconds. Tell me the non-911 way to report an emergency to the fire department where you are presently located.
See, the point of 911 is to have a dedicated emergency number that connects you to a trained dispatcher with the power to dispatch police, fire, and emergency medical services that is the same from coast to coast. As a result, most police and fire departments have ended their efforts to promote their local-access numbers because schoolchildren just need to learn what 911 is. The emergency numbers are no longer on a sticker on your phone, no longer on a magnet on your fridge, and no longer on the inside cover of your phone book. The inside cover now just tells you to call 911.
If consumers want it, they can pay for it- if not, they shouldn't have to.
Sorry, that's not how we do emergency services in this country. You don't get to opt out of emergency services to save a few pennies because you never know when you or somebody around you will need it. Any phone that's connected to the network, even one that has no paid-for service, has the ability to reach 911 at all times.
remember when... (Score:3, Insightful)
there were those little modem viruses that would continually dial 911?
How long till we see a worm that floods 911 using VoIP from all infected hosts?
Re:Cell phone (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are paying by credit card in the USA, the provider can require that you provide an accurate address or your credit card transaction will be declined. The credit card processors offer AVS (Address Verification System) to do this. You could fake the street name I suppose, but the street number and zipcode would have to match if they chose to go this route.
Another alternative is to mail you the information required to complete your VoIP account registration, and if you give a fake address you won't receive it...
Simple solution to a troubled subject (Score:2, Insightful)
Now here is the simple thing. When 911 call is detected, it will call 911 via the Voice Mail interface, put the caller on hold while the Voice Mail will reply to the 911 Operator with the address information OR if it the information is available via web page, the Operator's Caller ID interface would interlink with the LDAP server where the client updated the information and would query this data.
Once the operator is satisfied with address location, operator presses 1 to talk to caller and poof most info is already there.
Nothing too hard to do... Just a little upgrade for the operators to get down with the info.
The key is that if the IP Address changes again, the client must reprogram the 911 Caller info before making any calls.
Re:Overseas? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really... why is this under "your rights online"? Isn't it my right, by FCC rules, that when I pick up the phone I can get emergency service? It shouldn't matter if that's online or not.
We all pay for emergency services whether we like it or not at the time. We do it mostly with our taxes (which pay for the police and fire coverage to begin with), and you don't get to opt out of those just because you don't want to pay them. Part of it's the concept of the "greater good", but it's also for your own good as well - you may get all hot and bothered about being forced to pay for 911 service now, but that day you wake up to find your house burning down or a burglar downstairs you'll be happy it's there.
Obviously what the government does not want to happen is for some family of five somewhere to die by smoke inhalation because they didn't know the phone number of their fire department. This happened pretty often before 911 was a standard, and it would happen pretty often again if VoIP took off without 911 service mandated. There would eventually be a public outcry and you'd all be forced to pay for 911 service eventually anyway - the difference being that doing it upfront means nobody has to die before it's forced upon you. I think that's fair, quite honestly.
Re:Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
We were looking just last week at evaluating VoIP solutions for some of our clients. It never even crossed my mind to ask if you could or couldn't make a 911 call from them.
So what happens when joe slightlybetterthanaverage hears about these voip phones that are all the rage and that means he can replace his phone line completely and just go with the cablemodem? He can call his neighbor, he can call his mom, he can call in sick to work, but if his daugher falls down the stairs, he can't call 911? I bet he'd want 911 service, but given that he can call anyone else, why would he even think to ask?
It seems to me that if you can dial the number "911" on the device (ie, something somewhere connects you to the POTS), it should connect you to some number that can appropriately handle an emergency, since this is a major expectation that most Americans will have from their phone.
Re:Overseas? (Score:2, Insightful)
911 is CRUCIAL! (Score:1, Insightful)
Only a masochistic, suicidal psychopath
who is bent on self-destruction would cut their telephone land-line and
rely on VoIP without locator service.
I can hear it now.
Help Needed:My house is on fire and I'm caught under a burning bookcase!!!
911 Operator:Please stay calm and tell me your location.
Help Needed:The ceiling's collapsing! Aaaaagggghhhhh!!!!
Yah... but he saved a buck or two per month!
Re:Vonage has 911 service already (Score:5, Insightful)
Hello, 911. What is the nature of your emergency?
A fire, I see. What are you willing to pay us to respond? <pause > I see. I'm sorry, that's not enough. We have another situation with richer folks that you and they pay us FAR more than that. I'm sorry. Perhaps you can use a bucket.
Because government should be run like business - Profitably and only for those willing to pay.
eat the poor.
Re:Overseas? (Score:1, Insightful)
The intent here IS to initialize regulation of VoIP in that any company offering gateway services between the 'Net and the telephone network is affected by this.
As long as VoIP doesn't have easy access into the telco networks it will remain a novelty.
Re:Overseas? (Score:2, Insightful)
911 has several benefits being
1. easy to use/remember
2. portability
If you are talking about your residential line you can argue that there isn't much more to ease of use between remembering 3 phone numbers and 3 digits. Of couse in a panic you could get them confused.
The other prong of portability isn't important b/c you aren't moving the physical location and therefore the emergency numbers a fixed.
Of course while you may not be worried about portability in your house, children/visitors/contractors/servants might need to use it in an emergency.
Really it is everybody's individual interest to not pay the $1.50 or whatever they are charging these days, but it is in everybody's group interest to have 911. Thats where the government comes in and mandates it.
Re:All phone services should have 911 access! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. And even if you were willing to accept the risk, there are other people in your house at times--workers, or babysitters, the PG&E guy, that may, in an emergency, need to use your phone to dial 911.
But how many people use VOIP as their only phone? (Score:3, Insightful)
One reason people may be opposed to it is that I would guess few people at this point use VOIP as their only phone service. For example, I currently have a packet8 account that I use for long distance calls, but I also have a cell. If I'm already paying for GPS on my cell so people can reach me, why should I pay twice so I can call from my VOIP phone? At this stage people who sign up for VOIP are mostly early adopter techies who are aware of the 911 issue.
The other thing that makes it more difficult is that VOIP numbers, unlike POTS numbers, can use any area code/exchange. My VOIP exchange is for a town half an hour away from me, and if I wanted I could have an area code on the other side of the country. This means that getting 911 to work will be a significant expense for VOIP companies.
The fact that people have signed up for VOIP without it suggests that at least some people don't see a need for it and thus don't want to pay - either they have other phones or they can put a little note next to their VOIP with the fire department's number on it.
Re:But how many people use VOIP as their only phon (Score:1, Insightful)
So when you're convulsing on the floor, and you just so happened to forget to recharge your cell-phone battery, and your grandmother from out of state walks in to discover your face turning blue, I'm sure she won't be the least upset by the fact that you were to damn cheap to pay for 911 service on your state-of-the-art VoIP phone.
Re:Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overseas? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to be a telephone system, you have to meet telephone system standards.
If all you want to do is stream audio between your PC and your girlfriends' over your broadband connections, I don't think even the FCC is dumb enough to try to stop you.
Re:Overseas? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think the government is more concerned with someone trying to call 911 with an emergency through their VoIP phone, and the VoIP provider cannot track exactly where the call is being made from, because they either A) Don't have the equipment necessary, or B) Aren't required to send the information, so never set the equipment up to do so. I think that VoIP providers should be required to offer these essential services as long as their services tie into the traditional phone network.
Re:Whatever... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Vonage has 911 service already (Score:3, Insightful)
And in more, shall we say, "entrepeneurial" towns, the unsubscribed would receive occasional visits by firefighters who would wander around the outside of the residence saying things like "Beautiful home...but a fire trap. One little spark and the whole thing would go up. It would be a real shame if this house burned down. Would everyone be able to get out if the house caught fire?"
Terrorism - George Bush's best friend (Score:3, Insightful)
As a European its funny to see how American's totally believe the rubbish that they are all in imminent danger of a terrorist attack after having one incident almost 3 years ago.
The amount of deaths due to this incident were totally insignificant compared to say American gun-deaths that have occured since, yet while gun laws remain unchanged, every area of American has undergone change to take into account a threat which has so far actually affected 0.000018% of Americans.