FCC Gives VOIP 30-Day Extension on 9-1-1

August 26, 2005 By Geoff Duncan

The FCC has extended by 30 days its deadline that VOIP providers get customers to acknowledge they know they might have problems dialing 911 in an emergency.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission says it will delay a Monday, August 29 deadline for Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) providers to get acknowledgments from customers that they understand may encounter difficulties trying to dial the 911 emergency number.

The FCC had told VOIP providers they should disconnect VOIP service to customers who had not responded to the notice. Today’s announcement by the FCC extends the deadline to September 28, 2005; after that date, the FCC says providers should disconnect a user’s service if they have not received confirmation from that customer. The agency’s action comes after complaints from VOIP providers that the action would leave some customers without any phone service at all. Vonage, the largest VOIP provider in the U.S., said it would have had to terminate service to as many as 31,000 of its customers.

The FCC also allowed providers to use a "soft disconnect" with affected customers, enabling 911 calls to still be made, but where non-emergency calls would automatically route to the provider’s customer service department.

The FCC has ordered companies providing VOIP services to offer full 911 emergency calling capabilities by November 28, 2005. Providers have balked at that date, noting that implementing 911 for VOIP calling is not simple, and the FCC granted cellular operators years before requiring them to provide full 911 service.

Unlike traditional telephone service, where numbers are associated with fixed locations, VOIP telephone calls rely on high-bandwidth Internet connections and can originate from anywhere with sufficient bandwidth. That makes it difficult for providers to route 911 emergency calls correctly, since emergency services are handled by local and regional dispatchers, rather than nationwide (or international) agencies.

Showing 11 comments

J. Alec West at 1:30pm 1st September 2005 BTW, not all VoIP providers are evil liars. Here's one that tells it like it is:

http://www.voicepulse.com/availability/E911.aspx

It would be a real shame if an honest and upfront company like them had to go out of business due to an FCC mandate when ALL their customers know from the get-go that 911 is not provided at all.

I'll probably not become a customer since I want e911 from a VoIP provider. But I have to admire their forthright attitude and guts to speak plainly.
J. Alec West at 12:10pm 1st September 2005 James,

If you were driving down the freeway and otherwise obeying the law ... then some idiot plowed his car into the back of yours causing you to plow into the back of the car in front of you, who would the police cite as at fault? It would be the car that started the chain-reaction accident, right? The chain of this VoIP dilemma started with the FCC ignoring the obvious pitfalls of a "mobile" service ... which in turn caused VoIP providers to plow into the consumer with 911 that isn't really 911.

Should VoIP providers be taken to task? You bet ... and they are in at least 3 states at the Attorney General level. That number could go up, too ... and the VoIP providers deserve it. But the real source of shame is in the watchdog that let it happen. This is not being a "big brother." It's being a "cop."
James at 11:53am 1st September 2005 Ok so its the FCC's job to play big brother all of the time? Some of these companies KNOW better than to introduce a product that is incomplete. Adding 911 service should have been a no-brainer. Was the FCC late in enforcing this? Yes. Should they have been there sooner? Yes. But whos fault is this really? The VoIP companies right? People's lives are at risk, and these VoIP companies are saying they basically don't care as long as they make a few extra bucks.
J. Alec West at 11:38am 1st September 2005 P.S. 911 calling has been around since 1992. It would have been a simple matter for the FCC to go up to VoIP providers when they started and say one thing to them:

"If you plan on offering 911 service that is not fully compliant with the Emergency 911 Act, you are forbidden to use the term '911' on your websites or in any of your advertisements ... even in comparison to traditional 911. You either have REAL 911, or you don't."

End of mandate. It's really a no-brainer.
J. Alec West at 11:25am 1st September 2005 James, you wrote "Gimme a break. If VoIP companies did a better job informing the consumer that they do not get 911 service with their VoIP product, we wouldn't be here. The FCC is only stepping in because Vonage and similar companes tried to be sneaky by putting that in the super tiny fine print rather than being honest in the beginning."

Give ME a break. If the FCC had stepped in sooner, there wouldn't be a NEED for VoIP providers to explain anything in the first place. This is a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" question we know the answer to ... the regulatory agency came FIRST.

Were VoIP providers fraudulently representing their "911" product to consumers? Of course they were. No debate about that. But the FCC is supposed to be a "watchdog" agency ... standing between consumers and entities that would attempt to defraud us. Instead, our "watchdog" was asleep in the shade until incidents in Texas, Florida, Connecticut, and Michigan forced them to take action in order to save face.
Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 10:23am 1st September 2005 I say both companies are at fault, the FCC has been sitting back way too long to let this happen so late in the game. IMO the VoIP product is still overrated and needs to mature a little more. People are jumping onto the bandwagon well before they should be. Price isn't everything and the quality of VoIP still cannot compare to traditional phonel lines. Now if only cellular technology would get better.
James at 10:20am 1st September 2005 Gimme a break. If VoIP companies did a better job informing the consumer that they do not get 911 service with their VoIP product, we wouldn't be here. The FCC is only stepping in because Vonage and similar companes tried to be sneaky by putting that in the super tiny fine print rather than being honest in the beginning.
J. Alec West at 9:20am 1st September 2005 It's the FCC's fault because they didn't step into the regulatory picture sooner. They knew the ramifications of a potentially "mobile" service and chose a hands-off approach. There are two types of VoIP users ... a business user who hops from one hotel to the next and doesn't want e911 service anyway. And, the home user who wants e911 service 24/7. Both types of users should have their way ... and business users shouldn't be forced to pay for a service they'll never use (much less want). That's why I proposed the 2-tier approach.

The dangerous thing about VoIP is that the FCC, by adopting its hands-off approach, has allowed VoIP providers to equivocate over the definition of "911." They should either have 911 (as traditionally understood) or not ... and let the consumer choose the service level they desire. Believe it or not, some VoIP home users still maintain a landline ... using VoIP primarily to make free long-distance calls. And some VoIP home users (like me) have a cellphone. Personally, I'd opt for the e911 level of service. But I don't want the government to force it down my throat if I didn't want it.
James at 8:37am 1st September 2005 Whoa, how is this the FCC's fault? VoIP companies are the ones pretending to be a phone company that is classified as an ISP (which is why they are not regulated the same as a phone company). They are intentionally screwing the consumer by advertising and pretending to be one service, and asking the FCC to classify them as another. Its about time the FCC stepped in and took charge. 911 service needs to be mandatory on all VoIP products IMO.
J. Alec West at 4:38am 1st September 2005 If the FCC needs to mandate anything, it should be a two tier service level - BASIC (no 911) and ENHANCED (completely e911 compliant). The misunderstandings, lawsuits, and deadlines we now see today are the direct result of the FCC's inability to tackle this problem early on, leaving a confusing and variable "middle-ground" of 911 scenarios. And, they KNEW it was coming. Some VoIP providers are already e911 compliant. A 2-tier scenario would allow market pressure, not mandates, to determine who offers what. And consumers wouldn't have cut-offs to worry about, they'd have 2 distinct "options" to consider - a provider who offers no 911 service at all, or a provider who offers 911 service as the term "911" is traditionally understood.
James at 10:53am 29th August 2005 In my opinion VoIP is way overrated. People are letting the lower price tag get in the way of what's important - a quality price tag. I just checked out the user reviews for the Vonage service here on Digital Trends and there are hundreds of people claiming things like bad equipment, poor customer service, lates installation times etc.

http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/user_reviews1036... average reader score? 4.5/10 from 89 reviews! Thats insane.