Editor’s note: Published in the April 25 print issue of Network World, this column includes inaccurate information regarding Vonage’s 911 capabilities. Vonage users do not pay extra for 911: Even the $14.99 basic rate includes 911 capabilities. For more on the topic of VoIP and 911, see Johnson’s May 2 column.
Is 911 service an optional feature, or an integral part of telephone service? After a 17-year-old girl couldn’t get through to police when home intruders shot her parents, the state of Texas sued VoIP provider Vonage for “deceptive trade practices” for failing to offer built-in 911 services. Other states are following: Last week the governor of Illinois called publicly for VoIP providers to be forced to include built-in traditional 911, and New York is said to be planning a similar statement.
Vonage disagrees, arguing essentially that 911 is an option, not a requirement. Vonage customers don’t receive built-in 911 service – they have to pay extra. Even when they do, Vonage’s 911 service lacks critical emergency features such as location detection. Finally, Vonage says that while it would like to add comprehensive 911 features to its VoIP service, the incumbent local exchange carriers (ILEC) won’t offer the necessary network access.
The ILECs’ rebuttal: The real issue is cost. Vonage doesn’t want to pay for integrating into the 911 infrastructure, they say. “There are existing procedures to connect to the 911 network today, which several [VoIP] providers utilize. Vonage has opted not to,” says a BellSouth spokesperson.
There’s a bigger issue at stake. Many VoIP advocates make the broader argument that 21st century technologies such as VoIP shouldn’t be held back by expensive 20th century regulations such as those applied to 911, which they say stifle innovation and shortchange consumers.
In a world with global positioning services and instantaneous satellite connectivity, these folks say it’s time to rethink how and where we connect to emergency services. Maybe emergency connectivity shouldn’t even be a part of telephone service at all, particularly when better alternatives exist, they say.
That sounds reasonable. But is it? For one thing, these “alternatives” don’t, in fact, exist – and it’s not at all clear they’d actually be better. Assume every man, woman and child in the U.S. were issued a pocket device that connects to the global satellite network, pinpoints the user’s location and provides one-button emergency access.
The service would be massively expensive to roll out and maintain. And its ability to deliver always-on services would be questionable. Batteries need to be replaced. Satellite doesn’t work in hard-to-reach places, such as basements. Emergency devices can be lost (ever misplace a wallet or key ring?).
And last but not least, what organization should own and operate this brave new emergency infrastructure? (Do you really want the government getting real-time information on the whereabouts and movements of every citizen?)
More to the point, there’s something fundamental about the linkage of emergency services and telephony. As Thomas Norling puts it in his brilliantly concise history of 911: “At the beginning of most all telephone operations was a need to provide emergency communications.” (See www.nwfusion.com, DocFinder: 6730 for the rest.)
Norling is right. Vonage is wrong. 911 isn’t optional, it’s an integral part of telephony. VoIP providers should pony up the cash to integrate properly into the current 911 infrastructure, and if that increases costs and slows adoption, so be it.
Johnson is president and chief research officer at Nemertes Research, an independent technology research firm. She can be reached at johna@nemertes.com.
