Archive for the ‘E911’ Category
Friday, October 12th, 2007 | Posted in E911 | No Comments »
Perhaps a solution to VoIP’s E911 woes is in the works:
Anyone making a 911 call in the U.S. today using a voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone isn’t directly calling the local 911 center. Instead, the call has to go through a third party, such as a competitive local exchange carrier, who then connects that emergency call to the local 911 operator.
The reason for a middleman is simple — current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules only allow traditional telephone service carriers to connect directly with the 911 system backbone to avoid swamping the service during emergencies. That leaves VoIP phone companies without a direct way to provide 911 service on their own.
A new bill introduced recently in the U.S. House of Representatives aims to change that to allow VoIP companies to offer 911 services to customers.
The 911 Modernization and Public Safety Act (H.R. 3403), which is being pushed by Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), would give VoIP companies and other news-related services direct access to 911 systems.
Sunday, May 6th, 2007 | Posted in E911 | 1 Comment »
Via Consumerist:
AT&T is firing VoIP customers who live in areas not served by E911. The letters to CallVantage subscribers were sent over the past two weeks and read, “All customers who currently have A911 service must be moved to E911 service (where available) or their AT&T CallVantage service will be disconnected.” If E911 is unavailable, service is suspended effective May 21.
Thursday, December 14th, 2006 | Posted in E911, Vonage | 2 Comments »
Vonage 
(NYSE: VG) announced that over 93% of its U.S. subscriber lines are now equipped with Enhanced 911 (E911) service – a feature that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party’s telephone number.
Vonage’s nomadic E911 solution gives customers the ability to reach a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), or 911 center, through the dedicated 911 network infrastructure. With Vonage’s nomadic E911 solution, a customer’s call is automatically routed to the appropriate 911 center, with the caller’s registered street address and telephone number appearing on the dispatcher screen. Vonage will continue to turn up and test new PSAPs that are VoIP-ready every day.
In less than two months, Vonage has equipped over 170 locally-run emergency call centers across the U.S. with E911 – bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 6400.
"Today over 93 percent of our U.S. subscriber lines have full E911 capability, which is a tremendous step for Vonage," said Vonage CEO Michael Snyder. "Vonage will continue to work with the FCC, regulators, Congress and public safety until PSAPs across the nation are equipped with E911."
Details by area code of Vonage E911 coverage
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 | Posted in E911 | No Comments »
Vonage America Inc., a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG) , a leading Internet telephony provider, today announced that over 91% of its U.S. subscriber lines are now equipped with Enhanced 911 (E911) service — a feature that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party’s telephone number.
In less than 30 days, Vonage has equipped an additional 80 locally-run emergency call centers across the U.S. with E911 — bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 5900.
Vonage’s nomadic E911 solution gives customers the ability to reach a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), or 911 center, through the dedicated 911 network infrastructure. With Vonage’s nomadic E911 solution, a customer’s call is automatically routed to the appropriate 911 center, with the caller’s registered street address and telephone number appearing on the dispatcher screen — regardless of where or what exchange they are calling from. Vonage will continue to turn up and test new PSAPs that are VoIP-ready every day.
"Today over 91 percent of our U.S. subscriber lines have full E911 capability, which is a tremendous step for Vonage. The company will continue to work diligently to deploy E911 to its subscribers across the United States," said Vonage CEO Michael Snyder. "Our goal is to get every Vonage customer help when they need it and we will not stop working with the FCC, regulators, Congress and PSAPs until there is equal access to E911 for Vonage’s customers."
In under 30 days, Vonage has added the following counties to its list of those with E911 capabilities -. bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 5900.
Monday, October 2nd, 2006 | Posted in E911 | No Comments »
E911 still remains an issue for VoIP phones:
Dispatchers in the Lackawanna County Communications Center may not be able to pinpoint the location of someone who uses VoIP to call 911, officials say.
Tom Dubas, director of county emergency services, has seen danger in using VoIP.
“On traditional phone lines, we get the origin of the calls,” Mr. Dubas said. “With wireless service, we get location in relation to a cell phone tower.”
That is not the case with VoIP customers, because the calls are routed through computer servers and regular phone lines before reaching the communications center. So the location of the caller may not be known, unless the origin has already been programmed into the communication center’s system.
Placed from a cell phone or a traditional landline phone, 911 calls arriving at the communications center are prioritized for the seven dispatchers, Mr. Dubas said. But VoIP calls come in over seven- and 10-digit lines, which have a lower priority.
VoIP service provider IBN Intelefone (previously FlyFone) is rolling out E911 service as part of its Phase III initiative. The E911 rollout seeks to ensure that 911 emergency calls made using the discount Internet phone service are routed to the proper call center for the fastest response time.
Vonage
has been moving quickly to expand E911 coverage to its VoIP service subscribers.
For the past six months, Vonage has been turning up on average over 112 calling centers in more than 45 new counties each week. In less than three weeks, Vonage has equipped an additional 200 locally-run emergency call centers, in over 70 counties, with E911 ─ bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 4500.
In June, the FCC gave Vonage, and all Internet-based phone service companies, 120 days to create an E911 system from scratch, and provide all of its customers, wherever they are in the U.S., with E911 service. In that amount of time, Vonage worked closely with local 911 centers, also known as Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), across the country to turn on E911 for as many customers as it could. Currently, Vonage continues to test and turn up new PSAPs which are VoIP-ready every day and will continue to do so until Vonage customers have access to E911.
"In just the past month we have turned on E911 service in over 690 PSAPs and 175 counties," said Jeffrey A. Citron, Vonage’s chairman and chief strategist. "Vonage will continue to work with the FCC, regulators, Congress and public safety until PSAPs across the nation are equipped with E911."
Vonage VoIP service subscribers can also dial 933 on their VoIP phones to hear a message indicating whether they are covered by E911.
With all of the stories of FCC regulation of VoIP E911 services, the estimated one million VoIP 911 calls per year statistic we came across today is interesting to note.
There will be a press conference on April 13th in conjunction with the National Public Safety Telecommunications Week:
An estimated 82 million wireless 9-1-1 calls will be made this year, and more then 1-million-plus additional Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) 9-1-1 calls. Public safety responders need to locate these callers in order to effectively dispatch emergency services. A distinguished panel of telecommunications, public safety and regulatory experts will address this critical requirement that affects a growing portion of the population.
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