The Jeff Pulver Blog: First the Senate, and now the House Weigh in on Emergency Response

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November 23, 2005

First the Senate, and now the House Weigh in on Emergency Response - When Will the FCC Get the 411 on 911?

On Monday, a bipartisan coalition of 10 Senators told the FCC that they thought the FCC's marketing restriction imposed on VoIP providers who cannot offer a ubiquitous E-911 capability might "impede competition and unnecessarily delay deployment of 911." And yesterday, the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (from both sides of the aisle, and including the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee and the Co-Chairs of the E-911 Caucus) suggested that the FCC should appoint an interim pseudo-automatic number identification routing number administrator to help ensure that VoIP providers can comply with E-911 obligations. According to the sentiment expressed in the letter signed by Reps. Barton, Dingell, Upton, Pickering, Gordon, Shimkus, and Eshoo, the FCC should provide nomadic VoIP providers additional time to implement the pseudo ANI solution and to deploy E-911. The letter acknowledged that nomadic VoIP providers do not have all the tools necessary to satisfy the FCC's E-911 requirements.

Obviously, the interconnected VoIP providers owe another debt of gratitude to the Representatives who have interceded on behalf of the nascent industry and the early adopters and pioneers of IP-based communications in seeking to allow the industry the time and resources needed to abide by the FCC's E-911 mandate.

I, however, am forced to wonder how we got to where we are today. Why is Congress forced to intercede on behalf of the industry that just one year ago seemed to be the golden child that everyone wanted to nurture? Why are we and Congress forced to "applaud this Commission's actions on E-911?" And why is Congress' course of action to buy time and give the industry the resources to build a backward-compatible capability into IP-based networks? And why is the industry compelled to stop its progress in building an i3 or next generation emergency response solution, a solution that could allow Americans to take advantage of an all IP infrastructure to radically enhance emergency response capabilities? And why doesn't anyone care about a petition I submitted four years ago, in the wake of the tragedy at the World Trade Center that would dramatically improve in-building wireless emergency response capabilities? If you have an IP line in an office building, the provider is obligated to track the user's location, but if you have a mobile phone in a building, there is no compulsion for the wireless provider to track the user's location? Could the answer to my last question be because it would cost the wireless industry too much money - money better spent on lobbying? Now wouldn't that be money wasted? I guess this just depends upon who you are.

In a similar vain, I wonder who caught the announcement that StanaPhone is no longer
an ``Interconnected VoIP Provider''?

In announcing its self-reclassification as something other than an "Interconnected VoIP Provider", the company has essentially affirmed to the powers-that-be that it is not obligated to meet the FCC's November 28th E-911 for VoIP deadline.

StanaPhone basically changed its offerings so that it now provides five different and separate services, including separate 'Stana-IN' and 'Stana-OUT' services. StanaPhone adds that "it is not designed as a replacement for a traditional household or office landline, that it will not be marketed as such, and that our users should not expect 911 functionality."

This is a work-around that I had indicated the FCC was compelling when it first adopted the E-911 for VoIP Order back in May. But why should a provider, particularly a provider of a free service (like my own FWD), be compelled by regulatory fiat to jump through such hoops if it wants to provide some degree of connectivity to the PSTN? Isn't it enough that the consumer is made aware that its service does not offer a traditional E-911 capability? How many other providers of varying flavors, with varying degrees of PSTN-connectivity and varying degrees of resemblance to traditional telephone services will feel compelled to embark on such convoluted, kluged work-arounds or cease business or charge for an application that it was willing to give away?

And how many other entrepreneurs will also decide to leave the connected VoIP marketplace in the States? In the wake of the FCC's imposition of backward-looking emergency response obligations on forward-looking application providers, a number of would be entrepreneurs and investors who would have be involved in offering interconnected VoIP services in America are choosing not to. And how many others will come to their senses (or give themselves over to reckless abandon - depending on your point of view) and take the regulators to task for stifling innovation and imposing backward-looking regulations on forward-looking technologies, instead of continuing the refrain "we applaud the FCC's actions on E-911?"

Tags: voip, fcc, e911, communications

Posted by jeff on November 23, 2005 06:33 AM | Permalink

Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos

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