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US FCC Demands Emergency Calls |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Friday, 22 April 2005 |
With recent deaths attributed to the failure of 911 Emergency calls in the United States, the FCC had no choice but to legislate to ensure provision of this critical service. But the Commission stopped short of insisting that location services be included - yet.
Describing the IP-enabled services marketplace as the new frontier, the US Federal Communications Commission, said it was committed to allowing the industry to “evolve without undue regulation”.
However, the critical nature of the E911 service caused them to places obligations on interconnected VoIP service providers that are similar to traditional telephone providers, the FCC said in a statement. This requirement was not extended to providers of instant messaging or Internet gaming services, because although these services may contain a voice component, customers of these services cannot receive calls from and place calls to the PSTN.
The Order is designed to minimise the likelihood of situations like recent incidents in which users of interconnected VoIP dialed 911 but were not able to reach emergency operators. One such highly publicised incident resulted in the death of a three month old child when her mother raised only a message service dialling 911 when the baby stopped breathing.
"By not dictating the technical means by which providers must come into compliance, we do not impose undue regulation on these services," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said. The vote to impose the order was unanimous 4-0
The FCC gave VoIP providers 120 days to ensure their customers could access E911 services regardless of where they plug in their phone (anywhere there is an Internet connection).
The FCC says it has taken a balanced approach, despite months of blame avoidance by VoIP and traditional carries over the incidents. Now it will be mandatory for VoIP providers to deliver 911 calls to the local emergency operator and to provide that operator with a call-back number and location information “where the emergency provider is capable of receiving it”. While the order stipulates the customer must provide the location information, the VoIP provider must provide the customer a means of updating this information, whether he or she is at home or away from home.
Services such as the Vonage solution allow customers to access VoIP from any phone line making it difficult to determine the nearest Public Service Answering Points, instead these services route 911 calls to public safety administrative offices, as happened in the toddler death, instead of directly sending the calls to the 911 contact centre.
The Commission also forewarned an extension of this requirement saying it intends to adopt, in a future order, an advanced E911 solution that includes a method for determining the customer’s location without the customer having to self report this information.
In return the incumbent telco’s have to cooperate with VoIP providers by providing access to trunks, selective routers, and E911 databases.
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