I'm afraid I must disagree on several points.
Well, actually, in the case of 911, that database isn't much good. I understand a VOIP caller can originate from anywhere, home, at work, a hotel thousands of miles from home; all because it's not a hard wired physical connection, but rather a data transmission over a common network.
In any event, VOIP has to register its customers. Why can't VOIP simply build its own database from its files, and transmit the address when necessary? Naturally, it's VOIP's responsibility to transmit the address in the existing 911 center's protocol at their expense, not for 911 centers to adapt for VOIP. I know some people don't agree with that. But, as a rate and tax payer, I already paid for the landline hookup, and I'm certainly not gonna pay again for a new kind of hookup for new people who are getting a cheaper service. I submit that service wouldn't be so cheap if it had to meet the same obligations as traditional services. (That was the same situation when MCI first came on the scene -- it wanted the easy profits but not difficult expenses of providing long distance).
This reminds me of the doublestand some modern newcomers take. A wireless company planted an ugly new tower in our town, in total disregard of zoning and asethetics and other concerns. The wireless company had FCC backing as a "common carrier" and thus was above local regulation. Yet when their subscribers had trouble with lousy service and wanted out of their contracts, the same carrier said no, a contract is a contract, it's a free market. That's not a common carrier, common carriers suffered under very strict consumer protection laws.
As to Carterphone, there's one thing we need to remember. The regulators -- government officials didn't like it at first. Why? Because the original policy was to cross subsidize basic service in the goal of everyone being able to afford a phone. In the old days, a no frills phone line (which included one free telephone set and all maintenance) was quite cheap, much more so than today. (That is, basic service costs much more than inflation when you add in all the charges).
One reason the phone company didn't want it was their "door to door" free maintenance policy. If you had a problem, in your telephone set, wiring, or in a toll call, you dialed 611 and they took care of it. There was no finger pointing, it was 100% Bell's responsibility. But after interconnection was allowed, finger pointing between vendors began in earnest.
The problem was, then AND NOW, is that people expect the same cradle to grave service from Bell successors AND equally cheap cross subsidized rates. We see posts here from people claiming Bell successors ought to do this and that, but we don't see how the heck this will be paid for. In the old days that could be claimed since high profit sectors (like business equipment rentals and toll service) would cross subsidize it. But that's not the case any more.
Recall that before Carterphone there was a massive complex in New Jersey known as Bell Laboratories. Bell had the luxury of researching lots of basic science, not just problems involving telephone service. Bell Labs was responsible for the technology that consistently lowered phone rates over time. I understand most of Bell Labs is gone down and the property is being redeveloped. I'm not sure that's such a good thing for the country. Bell Labs came up with a lot of useful non-telephone related stuff (for instance, a cheap shopfloor test for lead poisoning.) Will Vonage come up with such stuff? I don't think so.
Well, ever since MCI came along and skimmed the cream away from Bell, they've been in a defensive posture. Then you had divesture with the ridiculous situation of people like me paying MORE for long distance because local companies weren't allowed to "compete" even though the whole idea was more competition. Finally, they let local companies in and rates -- surprise suprise -- went down, and MCI and Sprint declined.
Anyway, this is a competitive world now, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Did people honestly expect only the good parts of competition to come through in 1983, and not any of the bad? That there wouldn't be any fraud companies? Full sharing?
No, a safe word is not the real world, that's the old cradle-to-grave regulated Bell System. We threw that out, on purpose. So get used to fraud (remember that certain company that threatened you and then went bankrupt taking leases with it?) Does Ford give away its R&D to GM or keep it for itself? Does McDonald's give free advice and supplies to Burger King?
As to Internet R&D, all of us certainly appreciate the great many donated hours of research and contributions to make it possible. But, frankly, given the state of things, I'm not so sure that worked out so well. Pat, you have often described the very serious problems of administration of ICAN.
As to "don't bother with administration", to put it another way: I remember when "shareware" was the big rage. That was gonna put the "evil money grubbing" commercial software out of business. Well, gues what, the average consumer didn't give a damn about the author, they just downloaded as much stuff for free as they could. It other words, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you give something away, don't expect the recipient to respond in kind. Somebody's still gotta pay the rent and power bill. The old college thing of passing the hat doesn't work in the real world.
This "public good" stuff might have worked when the Internet was in a closed and controlled college community. But indeed, even there college kids aren't angels either, they stole long distance, music, etc when they could.
As to this patent business, Verizon went to court. It won. Other times in the past it lost.
So Verizon and all the others -- big and small -- are gonna do what they're gonna do. They're in business. That's what businesses do -- ALL businesses.
If you don't like it, go back to pre-divesture, and have the FCC and PUCs approve every time a Bell officer wants to take a coffee break.