U.S. Senate passes 911 for VoIP bill - Not a good thing for carriers
Back in May 2005, the U.S. FCC mandated that Voice over IP (VoIP) providers provide emergency 911 service after a few high profile cases where deaths could have been prevented if their Vonage service could have been able to connect to 911. On Monday, the Senate passed the New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act, which completes the circle by requiring 911 operators to give access to VoIP providers. Why was this bill necessary?
For years, services like Vonage have been offering E911 service but have run into problems of getting access to 911 services run by the carriers - in part done to dissuade users from switching to a VoIP provider but also because of the potential legal liabilities involved if a VoIP call were to fail. This legislation clears this up by removing legal liability from these dispatch centers, while allowing VoIP providers to get the same access to 911 services at rates equivalent to what mobile carriers pay. In addition, this legislation should set the stage for a migration to IP-based 911 services as well.
While some 97% of VoIP customers are already covered by access to E911 services, this legislation does set a bad precedent for the carriers, essentially setting the ground rules for all the players instead of allowing the carriers to self-legislate. Recall that the U.S. government and the FCC are working out Net Neutrality rules at a time when the carriers have shown that they can’t self-regulate their own traffic management - the Comcast/P2P blocking issue that I’ve been writing about is very much a related issue in my mind.
In summary, this 911 legislation is a good thing for over the top service providers like Vonage, eBay (Skype), and Google as they look to deploy more VoIP and to integrate VoIP into an increasing array of consumer applications. Ultimately, setting the ground rules for all involved is a positive for everyone in the long-term, but in the short-term, more legislation should provide increased uncertainty in the near-term for the carrier community as a whole.
