Raising alarms about 911 over Net phones

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the Internet phone he or she usually uses at home, plug it into a broadband connection anywhere in the world and dial from the same number. So operators can't know whether a caller, who might be unable to give a location, is at the home address associated with that number. To help patch together interim solutions, most VoIP companies warn customers to constantly update their account information with their new locations.

The Bell operating companies are all in various early stages of dealing with the problem on their own.

Slow pace of change
Their hesitance may be due in part to their typical glacial pace of development, which in this case seeks to find the appropriate way for a call originating on the Internet to find their way to the 911 phone systems, which use incompatible circuit switches.

"These guys are in no rush. They do things methodically, thoroughly and completely," said Samuel Simon, chairman of the Telecommunications Research & Action Center, a consumer telephone advocacy group. "Now you have an upstart like Vonage, which would like this thing fixed now and on their timetable."

From Vonage's perspective, according to various FCC filings, the Bells haven't acted quickly enough because they believe Vonage is asking for access beyond the realm of what's justified under the circumstances.

"911 capability is critical to our communities and needs to be carefully maintained by the providers that use it," BellSouth spokesman Todd Smith wrote in an e-mail. "There are existing procedures to connect to the 911 network today, which several providers, including some that offer VoIP services, now utilize. Vonage has opted not to follow existing practices and has requested nonstandard support. As with any other special requests, BellSouth will work with Vonage to see what can be done."

After initial reluctance, BellSouth in the last few weeks has started "making some movement" on the issue, Vonage's Citron said. "It's the first of that we've seen from BellSouth," he adds.

The most resistant is SBC, according to various sources. That company had planned to trial the Vonage 911 system nine months ago, but backed out without explanation. Then, last month, it deflected Vonage's formal request to begin the trial. While it's since signaled a willingness to begin negotiations again, Citron is leery.

Perhaps the furthest along is Qwest Communications International, which has already trialed a Net phone 911 program with Vonage. But the operator has since turned down a request to permanently install the system.

Verizon Communications has promised to begin a trial of VoIP 911 in New York City relatively soon, a recent breakthrough that is "a very promising and good first step," said Citron. "But they haven't committed beyond that."

Stop beating around the bush!! The Real Issue is....

so the neo cons are pissed that citizens want to discuss trade secretes over heavily encrypted VPNs.. oh, this is about patent infringement, right? no.. its about Kazaa and Cnet!! whatever... evil people are running america right into the ground !!! flaver flay was right! and take that gprs gsm device out of my dam car! if you want innovation give me a living wage job and stay out of my phone calls!!