Shutoff of Internet Phones Over 911 Call Issues is Delayed
Posted on: Saturday, 27 August 2005, 00:00 CDT
Aug. 26--Federal regulators changed their minds Friday and said they would give thousands of Internet phone customers a month's reprieve before they face disconnection over 911 call issues.
A disconnection deadline had been set for Tuesday.
Companies providing this type of phone service were supposed to shut off any customers who by then had failed to acknowledge potential problems with making 911 calls. Internet phones might not work during a power outage, and some services route calls to public safety administrators rather than emergency dispatchers.
Internet phones -- also known as voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, phones -- are becoming increasingly popular.
Nearly 3 million U.S. households are expected to be using them by the end of this year, according to Forrester Research Inc.
Companies such as Time Warner Cable and Vonage Holdings Corp. have been blitzing customers with e-mails and letters but have yet to reach all of their customers.
The Federal Communications Commission had ordered companies, by Tuesday, to disconnect any customers not responding. But the commission on Friday said that it would refrain from enforcing the disconnection provision until Sept. 28 so the phone companies could have more time to reach all of their customers.
Vonage, the nation's largest Internet phone company with more than 800,000 subscribers, said it had yet to hear from tens of thousands of its customers.
Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications industry analyst based near Atlanta, said, "It would have been a nightmare to pull the plug" on the phone service of so many households.
The 911 call matter is serious and subscribers need to understand the problem, but the communications commission's approach seemed extreme, Kagan said.
Not all the Internet phone companies provide an enhanced 911 calling service that automatically displays the caller's phone number and address to emergency dispatchers. The commission has ordered the companies to provide this technology to all customers this year.
Many Internet phone consumers have canceled their traditional phone service, so they would have no phone service if the Internet phone line were cut.
Kagan said he hoped that federal regulators and the phone companies would devise a new approach over the next month.
"Cutting off phone service seemed rather archaic," Kagan said.
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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)
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