Comments on: Bells ringing in Net phone 911

Meetings between nation's local phone elite and Net phone providers are spurring action to ease major VoIP concern.

[GEBERWEIN]

VOIP and 911

The story was very good. It did a lot to get the message across that VOIP and 9-1-1 is like stepping back into the dark ages of Emergency Calling. The program still has a long way to go and the governments are not helping. As long as the funding for the network is not a cost to the already strapped local agencies they will keep it. But, the minute it begins to cost them they will go back to the way they know works at no extra cost. Legislators are so focused on tax costs that they refuse to keep or increase the ones that do good.

The big void in this program is the automatic location information for VOIP. That information is missing from an internet 9-1-1 call. The cost for that part of the service is borne by the provider. The program package to add that to the call data runs about $10 per number. Then there may be monthly costs for the data processing service known as PSALI which provides that information to the network.

Until legislators make it mandatory for this information to be on any non-traditional phone line VOIP and PBX services will not do it.

Gerald Eberwein
9-1-1 MSAG Coordinator
Cochise County Arizona

[Que.Ball]

Updates tied to IP

Many broadband networks will give users the same IP or a very similar IP from the same subnet when the device renews it's IP. Why don't they provide a system where you need to update your current contact info if your IP changes significantly?

IE. My cable modem IP never changes unless I switch network gear (get a new MAC address) or my provider renumbers or splits their network segments. On my previous ISP my IP would only change if I released the old IP and most of the time if I renewed I would get the same one anyway. If I left my equipment (router) running the IP would stay the same for months. Even when my IP's changed, it was usually from a limited pool of subnets.

The VOIP provider could be able to correlate IP's with geographical areas to determine if a change in location was made and force you to reconfirm your address before dialing out. IF your IP is from an ISP that gives those pseudo static IP's that hardly ever changes then they could trigger this update even when your IP changes a little bit (go to friends house with same ISP). You could always manually update the info too. Wrap it all up in a good privacy policy and I think this would help.

[dusher]

Tough Problem is 'Who Pays?'

A well-written piece describing the dilemma of E911 emergency calls from VoIP phones and providers. It seems the problem will be resolved, but there's the question of who pays for the solution. E911 services are normally funded by state and local agencies that surcharge basic telephone services to customers served by the local telcos. They can do this because of the legislative/regulatory rules in place. VoIP, basically unregulated, presents a funding problem for local agencies who manage E911.

Location-specific E911 for wireless services presents another difficult set of technical issues, but is being addressed at the national level via FCC rulemaking.