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FCC Rules Internet Phone Service Providers Must Provide 911 Access

Posted on: Friday, 20 May 2005, 09:00 CDT

May 20--Internet phone services must offer emergency dialing by fall under an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday.

The FCC action was taken amid complaints from consumers, Congress and state officials that some people using Internet phones couldn't reach emergency operators when they dialed 911.

"This situation is simply unacceptable," said Kevin Martin, who was appointed FCC chairman by President Bush this spring. Martin made the 911 issue his first major decision as chairman.

Under the order, companies offering phone service using Voice over Internet Protocol must offer connections to emergency operators via 911 in 120 days. Such services must also inform customers of any limitations associated with their 911 service.

The FCC also ordered that major carriers such as SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. must open the 911 routing elements of their networks for use by Internet phone services.

Despite the tight deadline, the FCC action could boost the adoption of Internet services to consumers. Online giants like AOL and Yahoo have announced they will offer VoIP in the future, for instance.

"It removes a barrier for consumers who want to adopt a VoIP services," said Nancy Kaplan, a vice president with Adventis, a Boston-based tech consultancy.

Consumer advocates and many in the VoIP industry praised the order, although some said it requires a quick performance level that may not be technically feasible.

Internet telephony comes in several versions. The most common VoIP service is offered from cable television companies in competition with traditional phone carriers. The Chicago area's dominant cable company, Comcast, said that it already complies with the FCC's 911 requirements.

Comcast's service, like most cable TV-based VoIP phone service, is similar to wired phone service in that the phones are connected at a single location and stay there. This simplifies the problem of communicating the location of the phone to an emergency operator.

Other services, including Vonage, allow users to assign phone numbers from distant cities to their phones. Those phones can be used from any location that offer a broadband Internet connection. Such "nomadic services" present a more difficult problem for a 911 connection.

Vonage said Thursday that it has reached agreements with SBC, BellSouth Corp. and Verizon to connect to their 911 networks, largely solving the 911 problem in much of the country.

The FCC order enables VoIP carriers to require customers to enter their location into the system each time they move the phone. The FCC also said that at some point in the future, carriers should track that information automatically.

"We agree with what the FCC is trying to do," said Jason Talley, chief of Nuvio Corp., a VoIP service provider, "but I don't think it can be done in 120 days."

Talley said some of his customers take their Internet phones to rural areas where it can be difficult to connect to the 911 system.

"They didn't really take into account the business user and others in this order," he said. "It's a shotgun approach."

Charles Meyers, a vice president with Level 3 Communications, which supplies wholesale VoIP service to several carriers, said that complying with 911 requirements is a problem. He noted that cell phone carriers have been working for nearly a decade to supply emergency operators with the location of callers and still haven't solved it.

Nick Wray, an executive with Control Point Solutions, a firm that advises large corporations on telecom service, said that VoIP's 911 shortcomings demonstrate that "it's not ready for prime time, even though vendors have hyped it."

While most large corporations are experimenting with VoIP, few have fully embraced it, Wray said.

While there is widespread support for 911 compliance by VoIP because of the public safety issue, some fear Thursday's FCC action may mark the end of Internet voice service innovation.

"They're starting to bring VoIP under regulatory control," said Raul Martynek, chief of Eureka Networks, a VoIP provider. "They'll probably mandate other things down the road."

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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