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Despite all the brouhaha over Voice over IP and predictions that droves of people will flock to it in the next five years, one major issue stands out that should give people pause before committing to this fledgling technology: emergency 911 services--or lack thereof. Currently, few of the big VoIP service providers have any sort of reliable emergency 911 support, though recent actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the competitive landscape of VoIP services may soon change that.
With traditional POTS (plain old telephone service) lines, every phone line is tied to a physical address, so when a user makes a 911 call, the call is routed to the nearest public safety answering service (PSAP) and its trained emergency dispatchers, who automatically see the caller's location on a screen. This is known as Enhanced 911, or E911.
With many Voice over IP services, 911 calling is not automatically available. The subscriber has to manually set up the service through the provider's Web site. And even for those who do set up 911 service, the current workaround is less than efficient. Calls are routed to the administrative lines of the PSAP, where the person answering the call may or may not be trained to handle emergencies. Also, your VoIP number and associated address won't pop up on the operator's screen, which means you will have to give this information to the operator. If the person making the 911 call is unable to give a location, the distressed caller could be difficult to pinpoint. Furthermore, the user's phone number is associated with the router/telephone adapter provided by the VoIP service vendor. That router/adapter can be moved anywhere a broadband connection is available, which means that a phone number with a 415 area code might be anywhere from Kalamazoo to Honolulu. Unfortunately, this process slows down the emergency dispatch process, and in the worst cases, callers reach only a recorded message telling them the administrative office is closed. A number of states have initiated lawsuits against VoIP providers, namely Vonage, in an effort to force the companies to be more upfront about their 911 service shortcomings.
For a number of reasons, VoIP providers have been slow to tackle this problem. For one thing, the traditional phone companies--the Baby Bells--have been reluctant to open their 911 systems to the upstart VoIP providers. Cost is also an issue. Several third-party companies provide Enhanced 911 services to VoIP companies, but so far, only the big vendors offer this pricey service. Also, E911 services generally require the user to register a physical address to the VoIP number and manually update the address as he or she moves the router between locations. The companies that don't provide free or paid-for E911 services resort to the shaky workaround mentioned above.
More recently, several Baby Bells have declared their intent to open their 911 infrastructures to the VoIP providers to test the emergency system, but actual changes have been slow in coming. A recent FCC ruling could change that. In mid-May, the commission voted to require that VoIP providers route 911 calls to the closest emergency response center and that the call itself relay the caller's location to the operator. The ruling includes language encouraging VoIP providers to develop technology that will automatically update the associated physical address of a router/telephone adapter that has been moved from its original location. Providers have 120 days to comply, which puts the deadline at roughly late October or early November. Whether the major VoIP providers can meet this deadline is unclear. And don't forget, should your power go out, your VoIP line will, too, which makes replacing your landline with a VoIP line a risky proposition. In the meantime, the safest solution is to use a VoIP service as a second line.
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Drop, charge, and lose the cords
