Source: www.voip-news.com

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008. The act allows VoIP providers to interconnect to the traditional 911 network that incumbent telephone providers operate.

“Vonage is grateful for the many efforts in Congress to make this legislation a priority. It helps consumers, Public Safety and Vonage support the best possible emergency solution,” said Jeffrey Citron, Chairman, Chief Strategist, and Interim CEO of Vonage. “With over 98% of our subscriber’s lines with access to E911, Congress has provided additional tools, leadership and encouragement to get all parties to work together.”

The bill had already passed the U.S. Senate and is awaiting presidential approval.

Vonage’s E911 solution automatically connects customer calls to the appropriate 911 center.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

ARS is covering the e911, real 911 services for VoIP, Voice over IP services. Although FCC has been pushing for VoIP solution providers to provide proper 911 services known as e911, too much political and legal wrangling has lead to uninformed general public meeting with trouble while trying to use 911 services, like when they had PSTN services.
Finally we might be getting somewhere now that the bill submitted by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been approved by senate.

"All VoIP customers are one step closer to having "real" 911 services accessible tothem, thanks to the Senate. The body passed the IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act last night, a bill that had been proposed by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). The legislation was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last year, and will now go on to the House of Representatives for further consideration."
ARSTechnica Article.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

As with any changes to the way we communicate making it much bigger issue for the emergency services, Dan Worth of BAPCO reported from The London Fire Brigade Training Centre, where the South East Region conference, “What does VoIP offer?”, was held recently.
The curate’s egg that is VoIP is currently presenting both positives and problems and it still requires a critical eye to make sure technology does not lead purely because it can. But as conferences such as this demonstrate, there are companies and protocols being developed all the time that the emergency services will be able to turn to for guidance.

The 33 delegates in attendance (plus attendees from exhibiting companies) also enjoyed guided tours of the London Fire Brigade Museum that had been organized so they could appreciate how far emergency services had developed over the years.

Companies exhibiting at the conference were: Avaya, APD, Mercury – Technology, CYFAS, Samdale, Extreme Networks, Arqiva, Resilience Communications and Milltelecom.

Bapco report includes;
Transforming communication using VoIP
Bruce Everest, Emergency Technologies Director, Avaya
Bruce Everest of Avaya, the sponsor for the day, looked at how VoIP has impacted companies and the emergency services from a business point of view.

The Emergency Services’ perspective
Lee Warhurst, Secretary to ACPO Communications Group
Serving Police Officer Lee Warhurst gave some perspectives on the Emergency Services’ concerns with regard to emergency calls being made over VoIP systems, as well as giving an overview of the Ofcom consultations into the regulation of VoIP services and the potential issues this has raised.

Handling VoIP emergency calls
John Medland, BT 999 Policy Manager
Starting with some statistics John Medland underlined that VoIP only makes up a relatively small percentage of the calls that come through to emergency centre control rooms – about 1,000 a month compared to 2.4 million a month from fixed and mobile numbers. But despite this the issues surrounding VoIP still demand serious attention.

VoIP forensics and evidence gathering
Mark Hayward, Security Consultant, SELEX Communications
The talk was opened with the straight-to-the-point statement that ‘VoIP is hackable’, and Mark went on to outline some of the ways in which this can happen. He also looked at some of the actual and potential solutions to this hacking. Flooding the network with info to stop voice calls being made, eavesdropping on conversations to gather information or even to save money are some of the way VoIP can be attacked. Identity fraud can take place too and there are numerous free-to-download programs designed to allow people to hack into VoIP accounts.

Converged communications within public sector and Emergency Services
Kelly Scott, Extreme Networks
The final talk of the day focused on the need for a network infrastructure that provides organizations, groups, and people, a secure, reliable and available environment to guarantee application delivery and combat the security issues of today’s networks.
One could find the complete article VOIP - out with the old in with the new.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

OFCOM the Telecom regulator in UK is concerned that VoIP providers do not provide emergency services calls and has decided to act because of the growing popularity of VoIP. We have reported about it in last July but now OFCOM have released the revised documentations and regulations.
Ofcom said the same condition will apply to VoIP providers from 8th September next year. Traditional landline and mobile telephones provide emergency services for free on 999 and 112 equivalent of 911 in the USA. In USA all VoIP Providers need to provide E911 Services. FCC is the regulatory equivalent of OFCOM.
OFCOM has laid out all the necessary requirements including exclusions and inclusions. All the information could be found here at the OFCOM announcement.

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Nov 13, 2007: The 911 Modernization and Public Safety Act passed in the House of Representatives by roll call vote. The bill will promote and enhance public safety by facilitating the rapid deployment of IP-enabled 911 and E-911 services, encourage the Nation’s transition to a national IP-enabled emergency network, and improve 911 and E-911 access to those with disabilities. The vote was held under a suspension of the rules to cut debate short and pass the bill, needing a two-thirds majority. The totals were 406 Ayes, 1 Nays, 25 Present/Not Voting. The Bill is an effort to bring Internet telephony companies in compliance with new Federal Communications Commission rules, will now allow VoIP providers, such as Skype, Vonage the direct access to the backbone of the E911 system which is in the hands of large telecom carriers.
The Bill H.R.3403

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

If approved, the 911 Modernization and Public Safety Act (H.R. 3403), which is being introduced by Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), would give VoIP companies and other news-related services a direct path to 911 service.
They will be able to by pass cumbersome e911 requirements easily without going through incumbent CLECs. The current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules only allow traditional telephone service carriers to connect directly with the 911 system backbone to avoid swamping the service during emergencies. So all the VoIP companies have to pay big boys to be able to access 911.
COAT, The Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, also active in supporting this bill.

"This bill just gives them the tools to actually provide 911 access," said Dana Lichtenberg, legislative director for Gordon. "They’ve been limping along" without these abilities.
In 1999, Congress passed a similar right to cellular phone service carriers, giving them liability protection when handling 911 calls on wireless networks. "Basically, this is a ‘me, too,’" Lichtenberg said. "We’re just adding VoIP to the list."

The bill has already been cleared by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. It goes next to the full House Committee on Energy and Commerce for consideration, and if approved there, could go to a vote by the full House before the end of the year.

Source: voipcentral.org

It is more or less apparent that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is no way detracting from its stand on VoIP E911 issue notwithstanding vehement criticism from industries.

The Commission is now seeking public comment for the smooth implementation of VoIP E911 services ensuring emergency responders to find callers using a mobile or VoIP system.

FCC has framed a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), the primary objective of which is to advance polices, rules and initiatives that will better ensure rapid emergency response and save lives.

Kevin Martin, the Chairman of FCC says on NPRM,

E911 ensures that when someone dials 911 during an emergency, public safety can easily and reliably find them. To achieve that goal, we need to ensure that our enhanced 911 rules provide meaningful automatic location information that permits first responders to reliably find the public.

The Commission would look into and publicly report on the issues before reaching out a constructive decision on VoIP E911.

Image:

Source: voipcentral.org

I am surprised that big giant like AT&T is canceling VoIP accounts showing inability to provide E911 services.

A Slashdot report points out that the company has sent termination letters to the VoIP customers clarifying suspension of VoIP service in a month and permanently disconnection in two months.

AT&T has explained that the technical problems associated with E911 service have forced the company to terminate VoIP accounts.

If AT&T remains firm in its stand, I guess the VoIP E911 service will not see light of the day.

The FCC has made it mandatory for the VoIP companies to ensure emergency services like mobile operators.

Interestingly, the announcement came just a few days after the Senate Commerce Committee has approved the VoIP E911 bill brining the right to access essential 911 components for the service providers.

Image

Source: voipcentral.org

Russell Shaw of ZDNet claims, he has received an e-mail from Verizon which states that the company will stop providing 911 services from first of next month.

The email reads,

Effective on or about April 1, Verizon Web Calling will no longer connect calls to emergency services providers. Calls to 911 and other emergency service numbers will not be completed.

Russell Shaw says that the mail has been sent to him from support@verizon.com.

However, we should not read too much of the mail, since there is no official announcement from the company. After all, dropping E911 service by established player like Verizon, will badly affect the VoIP service in America.

Source: voipcentral.org

In line with FCC ruling, Vonage is working very hard to achieve cent percent E911 compliance. The company is now a few steps behind the magical mark.

The US-based VoIP service provider has announced that it has ensured E911 access to nearly 93 percent of American subscribers. The E911 services allow the subscribers to contact a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) or 911 Center over 911 networks.

Michael Snyder, CEO of Vonage said in a statement,

Today over 93 percent of our US subscriber lines have full E911 capability, which is a tremendous step for Vonage.

He added that the company would continue to cooperate the FCC, regulators, Congress and Public Safety until PSAPs across the nation are equipped with E911.

Two months back, the VoIP giant had covered 91 percent of its US subscriber lines with E911 access. Recently, it has added another 6400 calling centers with 911 services to achieve 93 percent.

Read

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

Vnunet’s Clement James, reports that Vonage America, a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings, has achieved providing E911 service to 93% of its customers.
The E911 functionality incorporates a feature that automatically associates a physical address with the calling party’s telephone number.
In the past it has been a problem to provide E911 services as existing telephony providers, that has 911 capabilities, were not so keen on extending that service to upcoming VOIP IP Telephony service providers like Vonage. Some providers have paid incumbent telephony carriers to get access to the services, while services like Skype, keeps on dodging the bullet.
When a supported VOIP customer calls 911, the customer’s call is automatically routed to the appropriate 911 center, with the caller’s registered street address and telephone number appearing on the dispatcher screen regardless of where or what exchange they are calling from.

Over the past two months, Vonage has equipped over 170 locally run emergency call centres across the US with E911, bringing the total number of calling centres with emergency 911 service to over 6,400.

Links;
Vnunet provided the initial news

Source: snapvoip.blogspot.com

University of North Carolina’s ITS department is making headways in providing location services for VOIP and Mobile VOIP services within the campus.
ITS has asked assistance from Intrado, Inc. in Longmont, Colo., for deployment of next generation 911 services
“911 for VoIP is a hot topic for VoIP carriers like Vonage right now,” said Patrick Brooks, lead developer for Telecom R&D’s Real Time Communications (RTC) project. “But our added component of mobility will likely put UNC ahead of the carriers.”

(Brooks is a member of the National Emergency Number Association VoIP Location Working Group, which is defining the architecture of the next generation national emergency services platform in the United States.)
Read more about the E911 services and more at UNC ITS site.