how-to block ads
|
MartyT
join:2004-09-03
Georgetown, SC
| reply to kris926
Re: VOIP E911, good news amid the bad
Excellent. I would hope the press would try to emphasize the fact that E911 works just fine with VOIP, if the right address has been provided by the customer or the provider. With Vitelity, you are responsible for providing your own real physical address. I do encourage testing, after calling the E911 administrator and getting the ok to do a test call. | |
Fisamo
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Apex, NC
 ·AT&T CallVantage
| said by MartyT  :Excellent. I would hope the press would try to emphasize the fact that E911 works just fine with VOIP, if the right address has been provided by the customer or the provider. With Vitelity, you are responsible for providing your own real physical address. I do encourage testing, after calling the E911 administrator and getting the ok to do a test call. If the press were more interested in accuracy than in scary headlines, you might have a chance to see that happen. I've tested VoIP E911 calls (with permission from my local PSAP, of course) with ATTCV, ViaTalk, and Voipo (beta test line--they're not public yet), and all calls went through just fine. They had correct name and address info, as well.
If you think about it, with the number of active VoIP lines that are primary phone lines in US homes today, there have to be quite a few '911 success stories' that are never reported. After all, if it works as designed, is it news?  (The is directed at the one-sided press, not you, MartyT .) | |
B
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-28
| I've had to call a few (2 or 3) times under Sunrocket and Viatalk, and it's worked okay. I'm sure it does for most.
I did notice that my initial Viatalk E-911 settings were blank and I had to fill them in manually -- this worried me on behalf of other people, but it was during the SR exodus so I let it slide. I hope they're pre-filled these days for new accounts.
I recall one time we accidentally called and hung up. No one ever came by or called back. I'm almost certain that was due to sloth on the part of the "PSAP" personnel, not any failing of my VoIP provider. (No caller-ID block either, so even without E-911 they should have called back.)
By the way, despite the general advice to do it, as far as I know there's STILL no reliably uniform and safe way to schedule a test E-911 call.
-- B
--
In a realm outside causality and function | |
|
