E911: Coming to a VoIP Phone Near You
Illustration: John Hersey
Good news: Soon VoIP service vendors must provide 911 service that rivals the emergency service offered to landline users. A May 2005 Federal Communications Commission ruling ordered IP phone companies to provide enhanced 911 (E911) service in place of basic 911. VoIP companies must comply with the FCC ruling by November 28.
Basic 911 emergency networks can't determine a caller's location or telephone number, meaning that you must provide this information to a call taker--no easy task in some emergencies. And that's if your call goes through at all. Earlier this year, Vonage customers in several states sued the VoIP vendor for failing to warn them of shortcomings in their 911 service. In one case a Texas woman tried to dial 911 from her Vonage phone during a home invasion. Her call connected to a recording announcing that no emergency access was available from that line. Vonage says that it's rapidly upgrading its network to E911, and it hopes that it will have completed the process by the end of 2005.
With E911, emergency calls go directly to a public service switchboard in your area; your address and phone number are automatically reported to emergency responders.
One potential issue with E911 service is its cost. "E911 costs will be passed along directly to customers," says Yankee Group senior analyst Brian Partridge. "I've heard estimates of $2 to $5 per customer [per month] for E911. And that's a mandatory part of service, not an option." None of the VoIP companies we approached for this story would comment on whether it will raise its rates in light of the FCC's ruling.
If your VoIP provider does not yet offer E911, you can still keep yourself safe. Most important, make sure that your provider has your current address (to pass along to E911), and always keep emergency numbers for your local police and fire departments handy. Even when your VoIP provider begins offering E911, the service is not automatic. To get it, you must register your street address with your VoIP provider, and update the address if you move.
Jeff Bertolucci is a California-based freelance writer. Tom Kortie of Indianapolis contributed testing to this article.
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