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US FCC Gets Tough On E911 |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 10 November 2005 |
The US Federal Communications Commission plans to put a stop to VoIP providers connecting new customers in areas where E911 calls cannot be provisioned.
The onerous requirement goes above and beyond requirements for fixed line telephony and will cut an estimated 100 million Americans out of the VoIP target market.
E911 services go further than traditional 911 services by first routing the call to the nearest emergency services call centre and secondly by identifying the callers address.
The FCC has asked VoIP providers to file a report detailing how many of their subscribers can now access these E911 services and puts a stop to any marketing activity directd at those who cannot access the service.
Providers cannot even accept new connections from customers in areas that are not fitted out with the new technology, even if they could access traditional 911 services.
The move has been criticised by the VoIP provider industry as unfair considering the large numbers of traditional phone service customers who are not currently in E911 compliant areas.
On the up side, a new proposal being backed by the US Senate would stop the FCC requiring existing customers be cut-off from their service if their provider could not connect standard 911 calls. The proposal would also require the FCC to be more flexible in its approach to E911 access where it was not technically feasible to provide the service.
The move could be welcomed as a recent estimate suggests the FCC move would have seen three quarters of a million VoIP subscribers cut off from their service under the rules introduced by the FCC back in May this year.
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