On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission released the report and order details of the “Implementation of the NET 911 Improvement Act of 2008”. The NET (New and Emerging Technologies) Act was enacted on July 23, 2008, and outlined the statuatory requirement that VoIP service providers deliver 911 and enhanced 911 service in full compliance with FCC rules. The details provided in the “report and order” for the NET 911 Act are a significant step forward for primary users of VoIP, introducing equal requirements and compliance from all VoIP service providers. Here are a few details from the FCC document:
“Interconnected VoIP E911 Network. Under the Commission’s rules, interconnected VoIP providers must provide E911 service to their customers. As with wireless technology and services, interconnected VoIP technology and service present challenges in making E911 effective. Interconnected VoIP service may enable customers to place calls from various geographic locations which, as explained above, may necessitate the use of p-ANI for routing 911 calls. Furthermore, given the state of current technology to determine automatically the location from which an interconnected VoIP call is made, the Commission required providers of interconnected VoIP services to obtain location information, called “Registered Location,” from their customers.” In the near future, we’ll be looking into these new details for compliance in more detail. For now, you can view the FCC document in its entirety here.
