Even as Voice over Internet Protocol providers race to meet the Federal Communications Commission’s deadline to offer enhanced 911 service, many of them are running into the same roadblock that stymied wireless deployment-incumbent local exchange carriers.
VoIP carriers are learning a lesson that wireless carriers have been facing for several years. Their new-fangled systems don’t work so well with 911 technology developed in the last century. The wireless industry was forced to create patches; these same patches now are foisted, often reluctantly, on VoIP.
“The innovation will continue and then you will have to push and prod the 911 network to allow for all of the new innovation,” FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy told a recent gathering of public-safety and VoIP representatives.
VoIP providers were caught off guard recently when the FCC gave them until Nov. 28 to offer E-911-location and callback number-to their customers.
ILECs are required to offer 911 network access to other telecom carriers, but not to VoIP providers that have not applied to be telecom providers and as such are classified as information service providers. Those VoIP providers must find their own way to comply with the mandate, either through third-party providers like Intrado Inc. or Telecommunications Systems Corp. or through competitive local exchange carriers.
It may be more difficult for VoIP to offer E-911 in areas not served by regional Bell operating companies since many of those alternative carriers have not dealt with competitors before. “This is more complicated in non-RBOC territory because there are exemptions for interconnection for some rural ILECs,” said Glenn Richards, outside counsel for the Von Coalition, which represents VoIP operators. The Von Coalition and the National Emergency Number Association sponsored a recent E-911 technical summit.
In the meantime, VoIP carriers also must notify their customers of VoIP’s 911 limitations by July 29. A significant difference between VoIP service and traditional landline telephone service is that a VoIP phone won’t work if the power goes out or if the broadband connection is lost.
Also, VoIP 911 calls are sometimes routed differently than landline 911 calls. In some cases, the VoIP 911 call is simply delivered to an emergency center, which could be an administrative line that is not manned 24 hours per day.
“If a service provider does not guarantee that their customer can get to a dispatcher, their innovation is useless,” Abernathy said at the summit. Abernathy had championed the FCC’s notification requirement.
Vonage America Inc. is trying to comply with the notification requirement. It recently sent e-mails to its subscribers explaining that it does send some 911 calls to administrative lines.
“Vonage is in the process of a nationwide rollout of E-911 service. While we have already rolled out E-911 in certain areas of the country, it will take some time to fully rollout across the entire country, and we will notify you when we are able to offer E-911 in your area,” Vonage told customers. “In the meantime, Vonage currently offers a form of 911 that is similar to E-911, but has some important differences. With Vonage’s 911 dialing service, Vonage uses the address you provide to determine the nearest emergency response center and then sends your call to a general number at that center. When the center receives your call, the call taker will not have your address and may not have your phone number on hand; thus you must provide that information to get help. Some local emergency response centers may decide not to have their general numbers manned by live operators 24 hours a day. If Vonage learns that this is the case, Vonage will send your call instead to a national emergency calling center and a trained agent will contact an emergency center near you to dispatch help.”
Despite the challenges in rolling out VoIP 911 service, New York City on July 7 became the first city in the nation to offer a VoIP E-911 solution.
“The deployment of the VoIP E-911 solution in New York City represents a significant milestone in the evolution of 911, providing VoIP subscribers in New York City with the same level of emergency response as traditional wireline service,” said Stephen Meer, co-founder and chief technology officer of Intrado, one of the parties involved in the New York City deployment.
Verizon Communications Inc. and Vonage also were involved in getting VoIP E-911 in New York City up and running.
“With the recent and rapid growth of VoIP service, we needed to find a way to integrate VoIP providers into the E-911 system in a manner that would reliably serve VoIP end users and that at the same time would not compromise the safety and reliability of the E-911 system for other users,” said Michael O’Connor, Verizon executive director of regulatory affairs.
Important lessons learned from the New York City deployment were discussed at the summit. One was the importance of having a neutral third party in the room and definable benchmarks and milestones, said Chris Murray, Vonage director of government affairs.
“New York City was four months of Kabuki Theater,” said Murray, noting that negotiations had been tense until the New York emergency-services folks got involved.
The amount of cooperation necessary to deploy VoIP E-911 across the country by the end of November means that everyone needs to start working together, said Maureen Napolitano, Verizon director of 911 customer services.
“We need as 911 service providers to know where the VoIP providers are going to connect on our network. We need to understand how many trunks and when. If everybody waits until Nov. 1, it’s not going to happen. We need to start doing it yesterday,” said Napolitano. “We still have not completed wireless, and it’s been 10 years. Now we’re doing VoIP in 120 days.”
Abernathy said the FCC understood it might take 18 to 24 months for the entire country to get VoIP E-911, but that was the “the judgement we made at the time.”
“Our whole history in deploying 911 for wireline, wireless and now VoIP has been a series of decisions,” said Abernathy, noting she expects waivers to be filed. “This will be an evolution. I seriously doubt that the first time out of the gate we got everything right.”
Vonage does not expect to have full E-911 available by the Nov. 28 deadline, said Murray. “Will we get to 100-percent compliance? I think everyone realizes that won’t be the case,” he said.
