vonage 911 service

Bob...a similar situation happened in Orlando about a year ago......A parent could not get through to 911...and a child died.

So much for saving money on long distance. The customer's Life Safety is sacrificed. Some people are "Penny wise and pound foolish"

A similar situation is going to happen in a place of business, and potentially large groups of people will be hurt or killed.

Norm Mugford

I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?

I have not seen the email. I do not use voip and I've been put on hold many times when calling 911. Unless they were routed to the wrong 911 how could it be the fault of voip if the 911 center was overwhelmed and put someone on hold?

The 911 service in many areas is overwhelmed by people calling for non-emergency reasons, I don't think being placed on hold by a 911 operator is something thats exclusive to VoIP services.

Doug L

not to mention the emergency reasons. ;)

isn't voip a technology?

if the 911 center was overwhelmed and put someone on

now we are talking, not about technology, but facility capability and staffing.

Scary thought....." 911, is this an emergency?" Yes!! Help! Help! My house is on fire!!" "Please hold"(music on hold) "OK, where were we? Oh yes, that will be one large pizza with cheese, sausage and mushrooms." "Is that all ma'am?" "Add a large coke." "Pick up or delivery, ma'am?" "I'll come get it when I am through with this other call."(click) "Ok, where were we?" Hello....Hello...Hello...(click) "@#*%, I can't believe that rude SOB hung up on me.

Fortunately, I have had to use 911 on only one occassion and I couldn't have asked for more. Another time, I mistakenly dialed 911 when entering an area code and hung up immediately. The call must have been redirected because the local police department called me back very quickly to see if everything was alright. Again, couldn't have ask for more. I guess I was lucky from what is being said here. Something I will have to pay more attention to for emergencies.

Guys, VOIP's 9-1-1 does not operate like landline emergency calls. VOIP emergency calls may have to be routed through a regional or state emergency center. Even if they have complied with FCC orders and have moved that number to a reporting location as now required VOIP still can't acces the actual 9-1-1 network and must depend on a city giving them an alternate 7 or 10 digit number to call. If the city isn't set up for this that number could be just the number to the general operator. There is always the possibiity that the VOIP provider answers 9-1-1 calls, find out what type of emergency it was, and forwards the call to whatever number they have for that city. With VOIP, there are so many things going on in the mix that you never really know which was the cause of a problem.

sounds like you are saying it is required by law to forward call to your local 911 center. Nothing wrong there.

VOIP still

doesn't matter how many numbers you dial. The phone rings and they answer "What is your emergency" Just like all our central stations.

If the city isn't set

I seriously doubt there are many 911 centers that can't take phone calls.

There is always the possibiity that the VOIP provider

sounds like you're guessing now.

so you are guessing. C'mon Bob tell us what the email said.:)

Seeing as how I am not the computer Guru that some of you people are, I forwarded it to you by email. Maybe you know how to get it on here for everyone to see. I have trouble just getting my spelling right. Thank God for spell check.

This is the link to the story, Kens email was just a copy of the text from this link

What do you think about the statements in the article concerning strict guidelines and Vontage, for instance, is not under these same guidelines? Or is that some sort of territorial thing?

sounds like voip customers have to enter their own info into the emergency system through some self serve portal or such. If there was any problem it could have stemmed from that but it doesn't say for sure. Also doesn't say for sure who put him on hold although he says it was Vonage. I guess you get what you pay for. Looks like there are other variables, sorry Jen, I may have jumped the gun a bit.[nothing new there] :)

To be honest I don't know, I was under the assumption that once a VoIP customer had entered the information then any 911 call would automatically be forwarded to a regional 911 call center. When I first read the email I made a probably incorrect assumption that the call was put on hold by a 911 operator, not a Vonage operator. In any event his house would have probably burnt down anyway.

I did find an article on 911 abuse and misuse which although not really relevant to this thread had some interesting statisitcs regarding cell phone use and the number of false emergency calls made to 911(US) and 999(UK) emergency services.

Doug L

Vontages contract, I believe in paragraph four, specifically spells out that it is their 911 customer service feature, or something like that, I don't have it where I am at right now. But it is a no liability type clause for any failure of their 911 service. But hey no one reads anything anyway. Not picking on Vonage, but in this arena their name spills out like ADT's.

guidelines?

Here's the explanation from Vonage of how their system works..

customer had entered the

call was put on

relevant to this thread

false emergency

From my understanding, you have to very clearly state your location because they cannot tell where you are at with the modem. You may be in hotel in another state. They may know where it is supposed to be initially, but it is portable and can be carried and connected anywhere. They really don't where you are at. It is basically a mobil phone service. That was always one of my concerns that a three year old is taught to dial 911 if mommy is on the floor, which is OK with regular 911 service, but may not be able to give clear information as to the location the call is being made from, which is a requirement of the other company. I don't know, because of the portability of the equipment, that redirecting the call is sufficient. Would it be? .

And...for what it's worth...

customer had entered

regional 911 call

that the call was

relevant to this

number of false

The only thing they left out was the cost for the service. There must be one or they wouldn't give you a choice. And besides, it is nicey nicey they give these guidelines, but does that mean you must educate everyone each time they enter your home, i.e. house guests, kids and their friends, maids, baby sitter, house sitters, etc. of the rules or just the consequences? What people will do to save a couple of dollars. I am one that will always have a pots line whether I use it or not, simply because I know it is there. I have trusted Bell for the better part of 60 years, no need to drop them now.

customer had entered the

regional 911 call center.

the call was put on

relevant to this thread

of false emergency

Or in Robert's case... another country.