[blu] (OT) Fwd: My take on E911 and VoIP

[Ben Jackson]

On Fri, 27 May 2005, Bill Horne's brother wrote:

> Now we get into this debate and some of the VOIP providers want to blame
> us for not staffing administrative telephone numbers around the clock
> thus giving them an inexpensive way out of the charges being leveled
> against them.  Those of you who are familiar with the technology are
> even more aware than we are of the qualitative difference between 911
> service and any ten digit telephone number but most of the public are
> not aware of those differences.  Add to this the fact that the VOIP
> providers are scared to death that they will be required to provide 911
> service at the first exchange rather than at their offices hundreds or
> thousands of miles away and you have us drawing and sharpening our
> public relations knives quite ready to leap down the throat of anyone
> who tries to shift the blame for the recent communications failures onto
> us.

Errrr... I am pretty sure that every PSAP (Public Service Answering
Point - 911 center, Fire/Police station, State Police, anyplace that is
capable of handling E911 calls) has some form of 10 digit number that
routes to the E911 system. I've heard of clueful people that have been
programming their VoIP phones' various 'emergency buttons' with said
numbers. While it would have been smart for VoIP companies to have
these numbers, they are kind of secret (Why? $DEITY knows. Probably the
same reason LECs keep payphone numbers secret) and most people don't know
about it. (Heck, I didn't either until this whole mess started).

Now, the problem with VoIP is that there is NO 'first exchange' in the
sense that people are used to. When I dial out on my Asterisk box, it zips out
of my router, through the vast expanse of the Internet and then gets onto
the PSTN somwhere in Michigan. If 911 was done on the 'first exchange'
I'd probably get a sherriff's dispatch center somewhere in Michigan. Even
if they could help, the response time would be horrendous. ;)

The recent communications failures are equally to blame on the consumer
and the ILEC. The consumer is at fault for not reading the fine print, and
the ILEC is at fault for not having some kind of "basic E911" service for
every wirepair out there. I highly doubt how ANYONE could blame public
safety in this mess, and the VoIP providers have done a very nice CYA job
on their contracts.

				~Ben

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