E-911 a Tall, Complicated Order for VoIP
Providers are scrambling to meet a Nov. 28 deadline by which interconnected VoIP providers must offer E-911 services, panelists said Thurs. at the VoIP E-911 Solution Summit in D.C. “Because only 33.6% of American counties have phase 2 wireless,” providers will need a lot of time and money to meet the deadline, said Rick Jones of the National Emergency Numbers Assn. (NENA). The FCC order said interconnected VoIP services must transmit all 911 calls with caller location and call-back number to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), “even if through a third party or CLEC.” Many VoIP providers said they consider the FCC’s decision “aggressive.”
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While the FCC order is important to development of VoIP services, the Commission left issues unresolved, said Glenn Richards, attorney for the VON Coalition. These include the question of whether “interconnected VoIP is considered an information or telecom service.” Such questions complicate compliance for VoIP providers, he said.
Some members of Congress fear the FCC order isn’t aggressive enough. Sen. Nelson (D-Fla.) has introduced a bill to require VoIP service providers to give “full, non- discriminatory access… which does not rely on 3rd-party access,” said Nelson aide Mike Sozan. Rep. Shimkus (R- Ill.) has a similar bill, the IP-Enabled Voice Communications & Public Safety Act. If passed, the 2 bills would provide the FCC with more authority to accelerate solutions for VoIP E-911.
The 120-day deadline facing VoIP operators saddles the industry with a “daunting” task, said Maureen Napolitano, dir. of 911 customer services for Verizon. “I'm very concerned,” she said. “We need as 911 service providers to know where the ISP 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.. We did wireless [E911] and still have not completed it in 10 years. Now we're doing voice over IP in 120 days?”
James Carroll, representing Qwest, agreed on challenge’s significance. “This is huge,” he said. “It is achievable but I think a lot of it is going to occur because of the fact that many of the VoIP providers are going to leverage those relationships that they have with CLECs or other providers.”
Major VoIP operators led by Vonage are eyeing outlays in the tens of millions of dollars to make systems E911 ready. However, even if they spend that much, they said, the rules will keep them from meeting FCC requirements. Vonage sources said their costs could hit $80 million, though numbers are elusive, since they don’t know exactly how their 911 access will work.
The FCC should provide more guidance to VoIP operators on what it expects of them before the Nov. 28 deadline, said Jonathan Askin, gen. counsel to Pulver.com. “There needs to be some clarification from the FCC about what bona fide compliance means,” Askin said: “There are certainly ways of reading the order that may suggest that it’s virtually impossible to comply.”
Based on the Commission’s record, Askin said he expects the FCC to give VoIP providers some leeway. “The VoIP community does not have the deep pockets that the wireline and wireless providers have and wireless has taken 18 years to get barely half the country compliant,” he said. “It seems absurd to hold the VoIP community to a stricter standard.”