Texas Attorney General Sues Vonage over 911

bigtallmofo writes "Vonage VoIP customers and readers of many media reports should be aware that Vonage's support for 911 service is less than ideal. Now the Attorney General of the State of Texas is suing Vonage for failing to make clear the limitations of their 911 service. The issue was brought to the AG's attention after a 17-year old Houston girl was unable to reach police after dialing 911 when both of her parents were shot by an intruder."

Is Vonage the right person to sue?

I'm not sure that Vonage is the right person to sue here. 911 does need to be able to work from VOIP phones, but my understanding is that the 911 system is not easy to hook up.

The real number to which your 911 call is forwarded is some sort of state secret. The 911 call centers don't want to be called except for when 911 is dialed to avoid pranks, mistakes, and confusion. If you dial 911 from Vonage they forward your call to the publicly listed police number for your area. If they could figure out what the call center for your area would be, they would foward the call there. But my understanding is the list is not available to them.

The 911 problems with VOIP are that like cell phones, you can take a VOIP phone with you. It is not tied to a location. Unlike cell phones, you can't pinpoint the location as being near a tower. You are just "on the internet" which is not nearly as helpful. VOIP does not have embedded GPS either.

Here is a list of things that I think need to happen. Lets sue until the do (I don't care who):

1. Make 911 call center numbers available to VOIP providers
2. Embed GPS chips in black box VOIP boxes and configure them to send location information when 911 is dialed
3. Require VOIP providers to ask customers the expected physical location of their VOIP phone so that 911 will work when there is no GPS data
4. Require that VOIP providers inform customers that 911 will go to this location if they move their phone
5. Require VOIP providers to allow users to change this location easily either through their phone, or a web interface
6. Require VOIP providers to ask the "where is your phone" question again if other customer information like billing address changes

I'm not sure how well the GPS thing would work indoors. You might have to have the box say "I can't get a GPS signal, I won't work until I have one. Go plug me in near a window until I can see a satelite, then you can put me in the basement."

--
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Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

I could be wrong now, but with Vonage, you go in and list your exact location to setup 911 (and you have to change it if you move, if you want the appropriate 911). Having never had to call 911 while using it, however, I have no idea what it's like after that. Regardless, however, Vonage does know your location (if you set it up, which they tell you to do). I have no idea about any other providers.

Test your 911 now

Well not now as in today, we don't want to slashdot 911. However if you have VOIP service and 911 should be enabled, call 911, tell the operator it is a test (sometimes they will put you on hold until they are not busy, just wait) then ask the operator to verify that they have your correct address.

It is legal to call 911 for purposes of testing, but you should only do so when you need to test something. A voip phone is good reason to test 911.

It is easy to do. Everyone should do it once in their life just so they have an idea what will happen when 911 answers. Just remember that you are low priority, don't get mad when they leave you suddenly. If there is an emergency you want them to take care of that first.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

>What did people do before there was a 911 system?

Died more often?

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

pitiful excuse. vonage certainly KNEW how to hook it up to dial the 911's. if nothing else they could have had a landline in each county, so it was doable.

however, what's really the point is that vonage let them believe that 911 would work perfectly - which it didn't.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

Landlines now have to be able to dial 911, even if you dont pay for service. I think its a FCC rule now. So even if you dont want phone service, you can still have a phone in your home for 911.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

How does Vonage lead them to believe it would work perfectly? From vonage's website there is a little link on the front page entitled 911 dialing. The SECOND section says:
911 Dialing Is Not Automatically Set Up for Use. You Must Pre-Activate 911 Dialing. You May Decline 911 Dialing.

Of course this is America and no one reads the documentation and just expects things to work. Did you also know if you dial 911 with your phone police won't know where you are? Some people were on a boat that started to sink and they dialed 911. They didn't know what lake they were on, what city there were in or the friend's address whom they were visiting. They drowned and died and now their families are suing the police because they couldn't help them.

Sure it would be great if we lived in a world where you could just should 911 and the police would come and save you but we don't. I also don't want to live in a world where lawnmowers need to contain warnings that basically say "don't touch the spinning blades, you could loose a hand" or "don't use this to trim your hedges dumbass" or else the manufacturers get sued. I don't want to live in a world where you have to list warnings in advertisements. My other question is would cell phone companies be required to do the same?

I mean come on, does Microsoft warn you that you might get a virus or that someone could hack into your computer? Of course not, why state the obvious. I have vonage and I certainly knew of it's 911 limitations. I also knew of the cell phone 911 limitations. (Of course the cell phone limitations are starting to change and they can usually track you to your nearest cell tower. Except not all police stations have the updated equipment)

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

I've only seen their advertisements from which I base my opinion.

they clearly say that you can ditch your old landline.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

I believe the logic behind suing Vonage is this--if you are going to be taking on a utility service to consumers but you (i.e., Vonage) still don't want to be regulated by collecting any taxes on 911 [vonage-forum.com] nor a telecommunications entity [stanford.edu] then you will bear the brunt of appearing to be a utility service, providing a utility service but not regulated nor subject to the laws applying to utility services. Therefore, you will be subject to taking responsibility for all actions coming from the use of your service. There is no doubt in the coming age Vonage and other VOIP providers will come under some modified regulations but until then states are going to have no mercy on them when they are being beaten by VOIP providers at each turn.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

And yet, all customers who sign up with Vonage get a copy of the letter below. Sorry, but these people were well-informed about how 911 dialing works for Vonage, and were just plain too lazy to set the service up. I want traditional 911 dialing on Vonage as much as the next person, but suing Vonage isn't the way to make it happen. I think the better path would be for Texas residents to sue the counties to get them to work with Vonage to provide a more functional service.

FROM: Vonage DigitalVoice Customer Care
SUBJECT: 911 DIALING NOT YET ACTIVATED-IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ

Account Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Telephone Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Customer Name
Customer Address
Customer City, State, Zip

Dear Customer,

Thank you for requesting 911 Dialing for phone number xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Please read the following information carefully.

DIALING 911 IS NOT YET ACTIVATED ON YOUR PHONE LINE. THIS PROCESS MAY TAKE SEVERAL DAYS. DO NOT DIAL 911 FROM THIS PHONE LINE UNTIL YOU GET A CONFIRMATION EMAIL FROM US.

Please review these steps to better understand how Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) 's Dialing 911 feature works.

. Using the information you provided, we will map your address and telephone number to your area's nearest Public Safety Answering Point ("PSAP").

. This process will be completed within several days.

. We will email you a CONFIRMATION LETTER as soon as the 911 Dialing feature has been activated for XXXXXXXXXXXXX. (Note that if you have multiple Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) numbers you MUST activate 911 Dialing for each number separately.)

. When you dial 911 from your Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) phone, your call is routed from the Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) network over the Public Switch Telephone Network ("PSTN") to your PSAP's general number, where a trained professional will provide you with assistance.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT 911 DIALING IS DIFFERENT THAN TRADITIONAL 911. We encourage you to login to your Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) account and click on Features in your Account Dashboard to learn more.

Please contact us by:

Email: [e-mail]
Toll Free Phone: 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357)
Fax: [phone]
24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Thank You.

Vonage DigitalVoice(tm) Customer Care

SUE THEM ALL!

Geesh. Ok, how about we face the fact that the MURDER is the problem here.

1. Your message implies "who to sue". How about sue no one?! How about the personal responsibility of knowing 911 works this way when you buy the device... I own Vonage, no secret to me that 911 worked different. Pretty clear when I installed the device. Of course, everyone who visit the house know this? No... but damn, we DID NOT go through this bullshit when Cell Phones were new.
2. Murder is bad, so everyone is going to look to blame all kinds of things. But this is stupid human behavior and what makes much of the USA suck is our lack of accepting personal responsiblity (the person doing the murder). And our TV/Media always plays a role in in, making it seem like our government's main job is to keep John Q Public from killing Jim Q Public.
3. Yha, GPS. Uh huh. Let's use technology to solve problems created by technology... instead of #1 and #2.

I feel sad for the girl... but I also accept that you can't eliminate evil from the world... and every time you try to 'contain it' you just end up push it somewhere else. There are some things worth making a stand over... but come on, just a case of personal responsibility.

It is the government's job to solve all my problems! (911) Blah.

Re:SUE THEM ALL!

It's not so easy. So many people are getting VoIP now, and few of them are able to tell you the difference between it and POTS. VoIP is offering services comparable to old-fashioned phones, and thus they will have to provide the same services for emergencies. If I pick up a phone to call 911, I don't care if it's a landline, mobile, VoIP oder telepathy-based - it just has to work, period.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

Theres an extra level of complexity added when people move - there was a case where a mother called 911 when her kid stopped breathing and she transferred through about 3 call centers before her kid died because there was some confusion about her address in the databases. There was some legislation to mandate GPS in cell phones if i remember right?

I think it would be useful if there was some number (say 922) that people could call that would let them know that their phone would go to the correct call center in an emergency and that the call center would know their address, the problem is that people are lazy and 8/10 homes will never check, sometimes socialism is needed to stop idiots hurting themselves lol.

Re:Is Vonage the right person to sue?

When I installed Vonage (at three different locations so far), you were most definitely told that you have to activate 911 and that it did not take effect immediately when you activated it. Activating it took about 10 seconds. It was part of the installation process, if I recollect. Once activated, I received an email telling me that it was not available yet. In a day or two, I received an email saying it was active.

Do you have some evidence of Vonage's 911 relay working only during office hours? Since, as far as I know, Vonage's 911 relay is a single 24/7 point for the entire country (in Arizona, I believe) I find that unlikely.

I could buy that some of the emergency services (police/fire/ambulance) are only available during office hours. Not all areas have 24/7 police/fire/ambulance services. That is not a Vonage issue, that is a locality issue. There are still areas not served by 911. In many rural areas, 911 relays to different dispatchers depending on the time of day (State Police vs. Town Police, for example). Vonage likely does not have direct access to 911 at that level.

I agree that 911 and VOIP need to work together much more. 911 is a complicated system. There seems to definitely be some turf issues I recollect from when it was deployed in my home state a few years back.

(For those who do not live in rural areas, please accept that very small towns often don't have the same level of emergency services coverage that cities do. I've been in towns where you have to call the State Police during work hours, because the policeman is volunteer and works during the day. You could call him once he got home from work though. In the town where I grew up you called Florence - she figured out who to call for you because she had a list of where all the volunteers worked.)

Reason number one

why I don't even use even cordless phones in my home.

I will never give up that emergency landline even if it costs me more money in both installation and charges.

(I may be biased, we have needed it on two occasions in my life, both fire though)

Paint it red...

If you didn't want to paint it red, get one of these [io.com] and put it under one of these [naugraexport.com].

Call it the "9-1-1 Emergency Phone" for the kiddies...

Re:Paint it red...

Although less stylish... perhaps a touch tone might be better in the case of emergency:

"Oh my god, a murderer!..."

*spin* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

*spin* *click*

*spin* *click*

"Hello, this is 911... hello?......."

Bah

When configuring your Vonage account, you're forced to jump through a series of acknowledgement screen which plainly state, in very easy-to-understand text, that when you dial 911, your call will not go to the regular 911 switchboard but rather a separate emergency service, which will then notify the local police, fire, etc. You have to run through this enablement process for each number you're enabling. So while it's perhaps possible that dumbass people using Vonage won't bother to read up on the issue, it's plain that Vonage has gone out of their way to let their users know 911 won't behave in the normal fashion.

One of the many reasons to keep a POTS line.

Sigh, almost every major local phone service provider is required to keep every hardline connected capable of dialing 911, even if normal service has been disconnected.

cordless and base station power

This also effects the cordless phones to a lesser extent too. Should the power go out most cordless phones don't have battery backup on the base station so the phone still works.

Many people get rid of their normal phone when they buy a multi-handset cordless, even though there's (in the UK at least) a big sticker on the phone that tells you about requiring mains power for the thing to work and the risk.

Huh?

I work for an ISP/Communications company in my area. I recently switched my number over to a beta voip test network we've been playing with. I seriously have no idea if 911 will work correctly. (Seeing as I'm geographically close to our switch, maybe it will).

So I'm a tad concerned about this.

On the other hand, I did have to dial 911 in the last year (or two?), *before* I had the VoIP service, while I had a traditional land line.

An electrical cable outside my house was about 60 years old and it decided it would short in the middle of the night. (Think this was last April or the year before). This was the main power to the house. I went out to investigate, and it was smoldering. I had no idea if the house was burning on the inside of the walls or not.

I run back inside and dial 911. Guess what? The girl didn't know my address. She fumbled for a few minutes and finally I gave it to her.

So if I know 911 had problems beforehand, why would I worry about my voip service? I've tried to make it completely clear to my family if something goes awry, we would need to use our cell phones...

I agree with Texas AG

911 should be turned on by default, but using an excuse that it routes through call centers is absurd. Local 911 departments have been routing calls for the last few years due to budget cuts. Thats a lame excuse.

Also GPS doesnt work as well indoors, so people who said that, thats not really going to work. Right now, cellular companies use tringulation and RF timing to detect where you are, works pretty well. Cingular (Former ATT Wireless) has friend finder, where you can add your friends and family and see where they are. Or leave a phone in the your car, and find out all hours where the car is. ;)

911 isn't free...

This is easy.

While Vonage is great and all, they are not taxed by anyone, as of yet. If you look at your baby bell phone bill, you'll see a tax of a few bucks on there each month for Emergency 911 service.

I pay for my 911 service, and so does everyone who uses a landline or a cell phone. Vonage wants access to this system, but they don't want to pay for it.

That is why the baby bell's are refusing access to the PRIVATE 911 network which they have established. We take 911 for granted, but it is a service that is private, and it is a service that we pay for.

Re:This should be top priority

how about this excuse :

where on earth are you ?

This is the internet, the IP connecting to the VOIP service isn't even necessarily in the same country as the handset.

Enterprising emergency service providers should start a low cost subscription service to hook up a batphone direct to the 911 center for you.

Re:Here I sit, cheeks a flexin'...

Does Texas produce anything besides asshats?

Please tell us where you're from.

(I'm certain hilarity will ensue, and I could use a good laugh this morning.)