CT Sues Vonage Over 911 > make it complusary

said by DaveDude:

isnt it better just to dial direct to the police, with the number (from a sticker) on your phone ?

said by DrewCapu:

I know you're being sarcastic, but it's a good idea to at least have quick access to the actual local emergency phone numbers. This is especially true for people who only own cell phones. For them, 911 often goes to CHP and then it takes a lot longer to get them to local police which could've been avoided had they took the 2 minutes it takes to find the local #'s from the front of the phone book and put them in their address book.

said by mjcrocket:

That is the problem, in many locations there is no such thing as "the actual local emergency phone numbers". You will not find any "local" emergency numbers in many phone books today! All you will find is 911!

In many locations emergency dispatching of Police, Fire, and Emergency Medial Services is handled by a centralized multijurisdictional command center. Even if you can find a "local" number, there is no assurance that it goes to that centralized command center. Further, there is no assurance that the number will be answered outside of normal 8 to 5 business hours Monday through Friday on non-holidays! That is what these cases are all about, Vonage claims to offer 911 service, but the calls do not go to the 911 centers or the emergency operators in those centers.

Yes, there is movement for Vonage to gain access to the 911 system under certain conditions. Remember, that the 911 system is separate from the normal phone system. When you dial 911, your local central office routes the call to dedicated 911 trunks from that central office which are connected to a dedicated 911 tandem switching center which then connects you over more dedicated lines to the emergency center that is assigned the responsibility for the area you are located in (in times of high activity, it might even be a designated backup center in another part of the state). All of this is invisible to the caller including if the call is being handled by the backup location. What is starting to happen is that Vonage is being given the opportunity to lease these trunk lines to connect their system to the 911 system, provided they can automatically supply the required caller information for each 911 call.

Unfortunately, there are at least 51 different 911 systems in the US (one for each state and the District of Columbia), none of which are interconnected! That means that they would have to lease several hundred trunk lines to make their system fully 911 interconnected. Further, before Verizon or any other telephone company can allow Vonage or any other VoIP provider to lease these trunks; Vonage and their competition have to obtain the approval of each of the local 911 centers that will be receiving these calls.