I can’t friggn believe how so many things, in this impersonal infotech age, are Somebody Else’s Problem.
Last night I twirled past C-SPAN just as the new FCC Chairman, Kevin Martin, was speaking with some Congressmembers. He revealed that Vonage, the broadband phone provider, is not reliably transferring their customers’ 911 calls to local emergency agencies. Some have routed to a call center that - get this - closes after business hours! I mean, Jesus H. Fuck on a pointed stick with a side of fries! And even between 9-5, they apparently can’t locate some customers reliably.
The Chairman went so far as to admit that two people in Houston had been shot as a direct result of a failed 911 call thru Vonage.
Apparently Vonage requires you to set up your own 911 service when your sign on, but prefers not to call attention to this, in case it affects revenues.
Swell bunch of folks over there at Vonage. Texas is suing them to provide full Enhanced-911. Michigan is considering it. I personally hope they get their impersonal infotechy asses kicked.
This is not all Vonage, this is SBC refusing to cooperate with Vonage to set up the access. From This article: “While Verizon and BellSouth are now cooperating, SBC has refused to do so.” It’s odd that Verizon can cooperat and SBC can’t.
Many see this as SBC just trying to protect market share from VoIP. SBC is refusing to cooperate and hey, if people have to die to protect market share, so be it. Did you see their vaguely threatening commercials and billboards a couple of years ago about how bad things could happen to you if you changed local phone service providers from SBC? It looks like one of those bad things is dying. Now, I think they are also trying to whip up consumer sentiment against Vonage for not doing the very thing SBC is standing in the way of.
Can you clarify that? I just signed up for Vonage a month ago, and when I purchased it and signed up there were about a million and one notices about needing to sign up for 911 through them and noting that 911 was NOT active until you did so and BTW did you SIGN UP FOR 911 YET??? WTF ARE YOU WAITING FOR???
It was never hidden in any way from the get go and was explained well, as far as I’m concerned.
And does anyone know what the difference is between using Vonage for 911 and maybe using a cellphone? Is it better to just use a cellphone or do you run into the same issues? Maybe it’s better to just program the local cops right into your phone with one touch dialing and skip the middleman.
For starters, in places with enhanced 911, when you call 911 from your home phone, it brings up the address this number is associated with and the appropriate response agencies- ambulance, police, fire, etc. If you use a cellphone, that doesn’t happen. Some systems can tell which cell tower this call originated from, but some can’t. Eventually, cell phone companies are supposed to give an exact location of the call for 911 service, but AFAIK, the Rhode Island is the only place to have full E-911. If you call 911 on a cell phone you will get a 911 dispatch center, just not maybe the right one. Also, if you can’t talk to them, they have no idea where to send help. From what I’ve read (Sorry, registration required) with VoIP, without 911 service enabled, you’re call either goes to your providers customer service center, or goes nowhere.
As far as programming the cops into one-touch dialing, yeah, it’d work but it’s not the best option. Dialing PD direct could significantly delay response times, even from PD, let alone EMS or fire. This could be even worse in places that use emergency medical dispatching. NOt to mention that in many places, city boundaries have nothing to do with EMS/fire districts. For example, the city, let’s call it X, I work in has areas that are covered by my ambulance company, X fire district, and XPD. There are other areas in that city covered by my ambulance company, Y fire district, and the county sheriff. There are also parts covered by another ambulance, Z fire distrcit and XPD.
A far better option, would be to find out the 7-digit number for the 911 call center and program that into your phone.
When we signed up for Vonage a couple months ago, we had the message to enable 911 service in red and bold so we don’t miss it. They are not trying to hide it at all. The people who say that are blind and illerate. Bottom line.
Most 911 call centers are operated by the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC), not by local government. In most of these cases, the ILEC is SBC because SBC has bought up the majority of the pieces of AT&T that were created after the antitrust consent decree. Because SBC owns and operates the call center, they set the terms on which other phone companies may use their call center to handle their 911 activity. In most cases, local government would prefer to have only one 911 center for a given geographic region, supporting SBC’s monopoly on the provision of 911 services.
SBC refuses to negotiate at all with Vonage on the provision of 911 services to its customers. Vonage is not even allowed to the table. SBC claims that they can do this because Vonage has not filed to be considered a “common carrier” and that they therefore are not required to provide Vonage access to their 911 centers. Vonage is not required to file as a common carrier and may not even be allowed to do so since they do not meet the requirement of a competing local exchange company under current FCC regulations.
Because SBC refuses to allow Vonage to have access to its 911 centers, Vonage would have to operate its own 911 centers at substantial expense and at a ridiculous duplication of effort. It is plainly obvious (from basic queueing theory) that having one 911 center for an area is better than having two.
SBC is also behind regulatory efforts to mandate that Internet-based telephony service providers be required to provide 911 service. They are trying to kill Vonage by forcing them to do something that they have the power to prevent them from doing in the majority of American markets. In other words, SBC is abusing its monopoly to attempt to destroy a competitor.
The areas in which Vonage has been able to negotiate for 911 access are those areas in which either the 911 service centers are operated by local government (e.g. Rhode Island, Cook County, Illinois, and others) or by ILECs not yet owned by SBC (e.g. areas served by Bell Atlantic, which has not yet been gobbled up by SBC). The problem here is SBC, not Vonage, and is once again an illustration of why monopolies are a bad thing.
Re SBC and the whole idea of private 911 centers: I hope they get it jammed up their bottom lines.
I have no experience with Vonage, but some of my hits indicated that, at one time, the dark red warnings etc. weren’t so easy to spot.
Could it be that Texas, for one, is suing Vonage in order to divert public attention from SBC? A big wireline telco has to have plenty of friends in the statehouse wherever it operates.
This is worse than I thought. Instead of economies or plain thoughtlessness, it seems to stem from pure bare-knuckle greed. Sorta proves Doug’s Law: “Never ascribe to stupidity what can be easily explained by malice.”
KellyM is wrong. Local govt’s are the primary operators of 911 call centers. The ILEC may own and operate the actual exchange, but the call center itself is the responsiblity of the authority having jurisdiction. Frankly, the idea that local governments support the SBC monoply is both correct, and meaningless. SBC has a monopoly because they have the infrastructure and background experience. It’s that simple. If the VoIP folks can do it better, faster, more efficiently then they should, but despite SBC keeping a tight grip on the field, VoIP isn’t up to the task yet.
I’ve had vonage for some time now, and its always had a big obnoxious message telling you about the 911 thing. Basically, its just like calling 911 from a cell phone.
Local government runs the call center but in most cases the call center is owned by the ILEC, and as such they control the terms under which others may route calls into it. Nonregulated providers, such as Vonage, are not guaranteed access (as would a regulated CLEC). SBC originally refused to negotiate with Vonage, making various excuses (I’ve seen several reproduced in articles from reputable sources, including “Vonage isn’t a common carrier so we don’t have to” and “The FCC needs to make regulations on the routing of 911 calls before we enter into such an agreement”). It’s pretty obvious that SBC is trying to leverage its dominant market position in local telephone service to kill Vonage.
I’m not going to say outright that KellyM is wrong, because I don’t really know what the situation is in areas where SBC is the ILEC. I can say, however, that nothing she said applies to the State of New York.
First off, stating that SBC is the company attempting to reassemble the monopoly ignores the elephant in the living room. Anybody heard of Verizon? Secondly, SBC and Verizon aren’t the only ILECs out there. There are 40 independent ILECs in this state alone, and the only problems we’ve had with implementation and coordination of E911 is the expense involved in rural counties with low populations.
Here, PSAPs are maintained on a county by county basis by the Sheriff’s departments, except for New York City or calls made from cell phones. Verizon is responsible for maintaing the databases in most (if not all) areas, but that’s about it.
Frankly, a lot of the blame for this does belong with Vonage. They were in such a red hot hurry to get their product to market that they didn’t even think about E911 until the packages were on the shelves at Best Buy.
Database coordination is the least of the problems with VoIP and E911.
Sure they thought about it. They offered a service to people who were willing to do with the same 911 service that cell phone users had, and that might eventually have E911. They knew it up front, and told their customers upfront.
They did nothing wrong.
Here the actual 911 center is staffed by the local police and if I call 911 vonage routes me to that same call center. But the system that tells them who is calling is run by SBC, so I have to tell them where I am. Same thing with my business phone at my coffee shop, and all mye employees know that. SBC is the bad guy here, not vonage.
Yes and as this article states, Verizon is granting 911 access to Vonage. SBC is not. That Verizon is doing so makes SBC’s actions all the more suspicious. Verizon isn’t blocking access to 911 so it is not too surprising they are not getting much attention in a thread about Vonage’s lack of 911 service.