I would rather say that we don't provide it or find a way to not provide it and make sure my customer knows this then be liable for someone dying because we had a router down and couldn't get to 911.
To me, the idea of VOIP and 911 just kills me (pardon the pun). It's a great service but it's not near as reliable with all the links in the chain and possible points of failure, as TDM.
Fact is, if I was on my last leg and laying in a pool of blood I would rather have a POTS line to dial my 911! How about you folks?
I just think that requiring that we use 911 is almost silly..
Are they also going to require that we never have a failure on a piece of equipment or one of our data links?
It's all quite scary if you ask me.. One minute we are providing a great service, saving people money, adding features they can't get elsewhere.. The next we are responsible for peoples lives in a 911 situation? hmmm...
Just something to think about..
I would rather provide second line service and tell people to keep their primary line for emergency use.
Heck, what about when someone's crappy DSL connection is down when they need to call 911? Do I get sued too because they couldn't call 911? Oh or maybe it's there ISP that gets sued because their DSL was down when they wanted to call 911!
There is a LOT to think about, and I think some of these issues need to be brought up to the FCC.. It's not as easy as saying VOIP providers SHOULD be required to offer it. It's just not!!
Fact is, if people want a service as reliable as a copper line for emergency use or otherwise then they should keep the copper line.
When you decide to rip out all your copper and make the leap to 100% VOIP in your house, you also make the leap into a less reliable world of communications.
If you want 5 9's of service with 911, keep the copper and buy VOIP as a second line etc..
Sorry, rant over.. I just get real ticked with all these governmental agencies throwing around their BS when they have no clue what they are poking their heads into.
Private Label Wholesale Internet Access! http://www.YourOwnISP.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Preston Garrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-biz] Vonage bows to 911 pressure
I think someone needs to stand up and start up a service that provide E911 service based on a per call, or per customer level. Its a big opportunity for someone to tap into a market that has not been tapped into yet, and it would be a welcomed service to many providers. getting your own E911 service together may be feasible, however alot of providers may trust someone else to do it that has spent alot of time figuring out all the quirks. Vonage didn't even want to do it on their own, and that should tell you something about it. If it was that simple, why would they need to partner with verizon to do it?
Preston Garrison direct: 877-748-4142 fax: 310-774-3901 cell: 623-748-4140
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, 5 May 2005 19:38:37 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-biz] Vonage bows to 911 pressure
On Thu, 5 May 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This is something I've been wondering about. What does this mean for the
> small US based VOIP providers? We don't have the cash or the resources
> to partner with the verizon's of the world in order to provide E911
> Services.
> If the ruling comes down, doesn't this essentially kill all of us small
> providers? This also helps the bigger boys too I would assume. Thus
> unfairly providing advantage to them. We could bring a class action
> lawsuit if it came down to it.
>
> What do you guys thing of all this mess and how it affects us?
Instead of screaming "sky is falling", how about actually *doing*
something about e911? Seriously, your users *need* it. You don't need to
partner with all the "verizons", you only need to partner with someone who
can deliver calls to 911 for you.
There are three parts to have working e911 solution:
1) Knowing which PSAP to deliver calls to. This is easier if your customer
is at fixed location, otherwise, you need to have customer provide you
with their location and pay someone (Intrado provides this) to translate
physical address to the PSAP.
2) Delivering calls to PSAP: Again, this is easier if you provide service
in just a single LATA. In that case, the telco from whom you buy PRIs will
deliver calls to the selective router, and selective router will route
call to the correct PSAP based on the ANI passed by you.
If you provide nationwide service, it is more complicated, as in general,
PSAPs don't have a callable "10-digit number" (that you can call like a
regular number on PSTN), and you have to deliver calls to the correct
selective router. However, there's push by NENA and Intrado to make PSAPs
have a "10-digit number" that would be answered 24/7 by the 911 calltakers
(just like the selective router number). So this may change.
In order to deliver calls to selective router, you should first inquire with whoever provides you with the origination service. *they* certainly have LATA presence and can deliver the calls to it. Now, your carrier may or may not provide this service, but its not rocket science, and if push comes to shove, everyone obviously will do this.
3) Assume that you managed to deliver call to the correct PSAP. Now,
call-takers need to find the location of the caller. The database of
locations is called "PS/ALI" (from the old "private switch/automatic
location identification" that was used so companies with large pbxs could
tell the emergency responders exact location (building/floor) of a given
phone number). Generally, these databases are maintained as a service by
the ILEC. Sometimes, you can contract with ILEC directly to get access to
the local database, more often, you will probably want to work through
Intrado to update the records. It ain't cheap, but again, it is not rocket
science.
The only class suits you should be thinking about are suits filed by your customers' estate when someone dies because you didn't provide e911 service.
Yes, doing proper telephony is hard. Yes, maybe smallest shops (aka a guy with cable modem and [EMAIL PROTECTED]) will be unable to compete. But frankly, I think its a good thing for the industry.
Alex Pilosov | DSL, Colocation, Hosting Services President | [EMAIL PROTECTED] 877-PILOSOFT x601 Pilosoft, Inc. | http://www.pilosoft.com
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