SBC Rejects Vonage 911 Collaboration > Rediculous

Rediculous

Did you even read the articles, or did you decide to post first and think later?

::shakes head::

...or maybe he just believes that some public safety services should be provided first and billed for later.

What SBC is doing is like having an ambulance driver demand cash payment before taking you to the hospital.

calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies!

reply to calvoiper
Maybe that's how it works in California, but around here we pay for E911. We also pay for ambulance runs outside of the local area.

Vonage is a business. SBC is a business. What Vonage wants is for the ambulance manufacturer to give it the ambulance to use for free, and by the way we want it with a different engine, steering wheel and green instead of red lights.

If you are truly serious about VoIP and not just a brainless cheerleader, you would be pressuring VoIP providers to join together with the rest of the telecom world to make this work (and that includes cell phones) instead of making excuses for their unwillingness to be what they advertise themselves to be.

reply to Dennis

reply to RadioDoc
So what you're saying is that Vonage and other companies have two choices:

1. Pay unjustified fees to SBC for the "privilege" of connecting with government 9-1-1
-OR-
2. Stay out of the market until an endless "industry standards" process comes up with fair ways to handle 9-1-1.

Pretty much guarantees an SBC extension on their monopoly for a while yet, either way, as I see it.

("Brainless cheerleader" troll ignored.)

calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies!

reply to icp1
They did think about it. And they thought that having to pay SBC fees to provide it was unfair.

calvoiper
--
VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies!

reply to calvoiper
- OR -
3. Go directly to the local (usually county) government agency which administers E911 and work with them directly instead of whining that big bad SBC won't let Vonage, et. al. play in their sandbox for free.

(Brainless cheerleader ignored).

Hard to do when the local government agency is totally in SBC's pocket, as most of them are.

Realistically, these are local officials who worry about potholes, police salaries, and getting re-elected. The last thing they care about is reasonably fair policies to promote competition in the telecom industry, especially since SBC regularly contributes to their campaigns.

If we leave competition to them, it won't happen at all in many places (muni broadband cities being an important exception.)

calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies!

reply to calvoiper

I was responding to RadioDoc's reference to me as a "brainless cheerleader", icp1, I wasn't accusing you of trolling.

And what I'm saying is two parted:

First, NO VOIP provider has "it all figured out" because the VOIP customer can always move without telling anyone and screw up the system.

Second, if you think vonage should have had "the whole 911 thing figured out before they went into business", then you are still faced with the choice I gave you--are you saying they should have paid outrageous fees to SBC for the "privilege" of providing 9-1-1, or are you saying they should have waited endless years while SBC played the bureaucrat game against them?

(And by the way, if cellular service had been forced to "wait until they had the whole 911 thing figured out" we wouldn't have cellular service today....)

calvoiper
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VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies!

reply to icp1
You all make it out to be some huge conspiracy. Anyone consider the problems of identifying the location of a VoIP subscriber? That's what makes the 9-1-1 system function the way it does. Location, location, location. You dial one number and based upon your location your call is routed to the PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) that has the jurisdictional responsibility for where you are.

So, everything works great if you are a static VoIP user. (Static users are always in one location) If instead you log into your VoIP account from different locations (a nomadic user), then the 9-1-1 infrastructure has difficulty handling that. Ah, but the same can be said for wireless calls. A plan was put into place to deal with that and is being implemented. The wireless provider has to be able to identify X-Y coordinates for the caller and the telco (SBC, Verizon, etc...) has to be able to dynamically update their address database with that location data when the call is placed.

The same approach should be taken with VoIP telephony providers. It is incumbant upon them to accurately locate their users and provide that info to whomever is the 911 service provider. Not one single VoIP telephony provider can do that today.

So why do you think there's such a problem? The reality is that 911 is rarely thought of when new services are developed. VoIP providers were dazzled by the money they could make creating this market, they just did not consider how they could effectively connect to the 9-1-1 system. Their primary concern was to make money, not save lives. So who's the bad guy here?

You can respond to these comments on my web site at »911Central.com if you like.

reply to jimbo2150

Re: Vonage wants handouts!