US VoIP Carriers granted extension
August 29th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 63 times, 3 so far today
US VoIP Carriers granted extension
The Federal Communications Commission has come out with a decision, which would help the VoIP Carriers in the United States massive. They have delayed the Monday deadline for these providers of VoIP based telephony services to get written acknowledgement from all their users confirming that they are aware of the problems related to calling 911 on their VoIP enabled phones.
Due to technical limitations the 911 number of the VoIP based phones are not very easy to implement. However, companies like Vonage and others are continuing to improve their support for this emergency number facility. This made the regulators force the service providers to generate awareness and made it compulsory for them to carry a confirmation from the customers that he is aware of the limitations.
Now, with the latest ruling from the authorities, the VoIP carriers in the United States have got an extended deadline of September 28 to get their things in order. Otherwise, they would have been forced to disconnect all the users from their networks who have failed to submit their confirmation regarding the information. The association of VoIP carriers had claimed that if the deadline was not extended as many as 35,000 people could have been left with no service at all.
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September 1st, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Fact is, some VoIP providers have already solved the problem (for example, Comcast) and are fully e911-compliant. In a free-market economy, we’re supposed to let the “strong” companies survive and the “inferior” companies fall by the wayside. So, I’m hoping the FCC doesn’t extend the final November 29th deadline for that reason … and subsidize inferiority at the expense of companies already compliant. Sadly, though, it’s a deadline that should have never happened.
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. Since 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. When life is at stake, there is NO acceptable “middle-ground” for emergency service.
September 10th, 2005 at 12:04 am
The reason Comcast can do this is they do not allow mobility of the VOIP device under their terms and conditions. Any VOIP provider which implemented those rules coudl be E911 compliant, as the device shoudl always be where it was initially installed. The fact is that most VOIP providers allow the user to take the ATA with them when they travel and use it anywhere they have a high speed connection. This is a majro selling point for many VOIP carriers and this service makes it very hard to comply with the FCC ruling.