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daveinpoway
Premium Member
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA

daveinpoway to DoctorStinky

Premium Member

to DoctorStinky

Re: Avoiding E911 fee

OK, but what I wish to use a provider (such as CallCentric) which does charge a monthly E911 fee (plus a setup fee) for U.S. and Canadian customers? I see that CC asks if you are in an E911 country when you sign up; will I (or the company) get in trouble I lie on this question?

I am curious- I thought that it was an FCC requirement for all VOIP providers which serve U.S. customers to provide E911- how do some providers avoid complying?
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan

Premium Member

said by daveinpoway:

I am curious- I thought that it was an FCC requirement for all VOIP providers which serve U.S. customers to provide E911- how do some providers avoid complying?

The rules are more complicated than that. You only have to provide E911 in a very specific scenario. For example in the following scenarios you wouldn't have to:
1. The service is incoming-only.
2. The service is outgoing-only.
3. The service does not use customer equipment (for example a forwarding-only number).
4. The service does not require a high-speed internet connection (in other words if you use a low-bandwidth codec E911 is not required!).
daveinpoway
Premium Member
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA

daveinpoway

Premium Member

In Situation #2, an outbound-only plan would not require E911, but CallCentric has an outgoing-only plan (»www.callcentric.com/rate ··· per_call ) which charges a 911 fee for American and Canadian customers.
Stewart
join:2005-07-13

Stewart

Member

Callcentric and Anveo take a very conservative view of the regulations, presumably to minimize the possibility that they would be held liable if 911 were not available when needed, resulting in disability or death. For example, someone with Callcentric pay_per_call might get incoming calls via a free IPKall DID, SIPBroker access numbers, SIP URI forwarding from another provider, etc.

With Callcentric, I've switched 911 on and off as needed (am in the US only ~4 months per year). With Anveo, once you have 911 there seems to be no way to turn it off, short of canceling the account.
DoctorStinky
join:2011-11-10
Brunswick, ME

DoctorStinky to daveinpoway

Member

to daveinpoway
Rather than wrestle with morality issues, I'd suggest you subscribe to a provider that doesn't make lying necessary.

Assuming, of course, that you understand the risks.

Edmonton Ed
@optonline.net

Edmonton Ed

Anon

said by DoctorStinky:

Rather than wrestle with morality issues, I'd suggest you subscribe to a provider that doesn't make lying necessary.

Assuming, of course, that you understand the risks.

They are not "making lying necessary".

It's a customer's choice to do business with them or not. There are alternatives, as has been said.

Anveo and CallCentric are strong competitors. If both of them agree on their interpretation of the 911 requirements the presumption should be that, gosh, there just might be something to it.

The issue is, even if the customer just signs up for an inbound DID, it takes just a few seconds and a few clicks to add outbound calling as well.

Voilà, in just a few seconds, it's an interconnected account.

I would also point out that the former provider Link2Voip clearly and publicly said on their website that the Canadian CRTC had told them to require 911 service even on accounts that only had inbound (DID) service.

That was the final straw for Link2Voip, one of the reasons they decided to close up shop.

Interestingly, Link2Voip had been requiring a 911 fee for each DID, rather than requiring just one fee per account as is done with Anveo and CallCentric.

I wouldn't blame the providers for trying to comply with FCC/CRTC regs as per the best advice that their attorneys give them.

Anveo, CC, and others have obviously decided that they'd rather lose some low-spending customers, than lose a FCC/CRTC case or lose a liability lawsuit. Makes sense to me.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy to daveinpoway

Premium Member

to daveinpoway
OMG, the set-up fee is $1.50 and the monthly fee is only $1.50. Geez, people are going to create fake off-shore addresses to avoid paying a whopping $1.50 a month? Unbelievable.
MichelR
join:2011-07-03
Trois-Rivieres, QC

MichelR

Member

said by jduffy:

OMG, the set-up fee is $1.50 and the monthly fee is only $1.50. Geez, people are going to create fake off-shore addresses to avoid paying a whopping $1.50 a month? Unbelievable.

Indeed.

Personally I'd get E911 on the VoIP line anyway. What if somebody is visiting and needs to call 911 and doesn't know what's VoIP or not. Calls 911 and nothing. Time wasted in an emergency = not good. Just something to take into consideration.
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan to jduffy

Premium Member

to jduffy
You're missing the point- not every setup requires E911. If I have a phone number with the sole purpose of forwarding calls to my cell phone for example - there is no need, no point, and it's a waste of money to setup E911 for it regardless of how small or big the fee is. Not every phone number is going to be used as an outgoing line.
DoctorStinky
join:2011-11-10
Brunswick, ME

DoctorStinky

Member

Similar to your cell phone observation, I have 2 physical residences approximately an hour from each other. I could be working out of either location on a daily basis, and really only wish to maintain 2 DIDs (work and personal) that will ring at both locations.

E911 really makes no sense for these VoIP DIDs, since there's no easy way to dynamically update the E911 addresses.

In the event of an emergency, my family has been instructed to use a cell phone.
daveinpoway
Premium Member
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA

daveinpoway to MichelR

Premium Member

to MichelR
As I stated earlier, if I had an emergency and a guest had to call 911, as soon as they picked up the phone, it would default to the AT&T landline and emergency calls could be made there. It would be necessary for them to manually select another line in order to connect to the VOIP service.

Pick up the phone, get a dial-tone from AT&T and dial 911. What could be more simple?

billaustin
they call me Mr. Bill
MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV

billaustin

MVM

said by daveinpoway:

As I stated earlier, if I had an emergency and a guest had to call 911, as soon as they picked up the phone, it would default to the AT&T landline and emergency calls could be made there. It would be necessary for them to manually select another line in order to connect to the VOIP service.

Pick up the phone, get a dial-tone from AT&T and dial 911. What could be more simple?

I understand the point you are trying to make, and you have a good setup. But you are the exception, and not the standard.

There are other things to consider. What if the guest panics and starts punching buttons before getting 911 dialed? What if your land-line goes out? The odds may be slim, but what happens if a car accident takes out the remote terminal around the time someone in the house is having a heart attack?

Just something to think about.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO

Premium Member

People have right to make their own choices.
If he doesn't need it, why to force that service on him anyway?
Just something to think about too.
daveinpoway
Premium Member
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA

daveinpoway to billaustin

Premium Member

to billaustin
I understand that there are all sorts of possible situations, but, in practice, it is probably more likely for the Internet to be down than it is for the AT&T landline to fail. Also, if I were to use GoogleVoice (as has been suggested), I would not have 911 service there, either.

Hal Houston
@optonline.net

Hal Houston

Anon

said by daveinpoway:

I understand that there are all sorts of possible situations, but, in practice, it is probably more likely for the Internet to be down than it is for the AT&T landline to fail.

QFT.

However, your particular situation is somewhat unusual, as most folks with VoIP (not all, but most) probably are not still paying for a POTS line....

..unless they have a POTS-type line as a requirement of having DSL.

jduffy
Premium Member
join:2006-08-20
Cincinnati, OH

jduffy to nitzan

Premium Member

to nitzan
I understand what you are trying to say, the point with this tax is that government has to pay for these 911 systems. So whether you use it on that line or not is really immaterial. It is a tax on all lines classified as telephones to pay for the 911 system. Everyone must pay their fair share as politicians like to say today. Look at the tax on telephones they implemented over 100 years ago. It was to pay for the Spanish-American War. They war and those debts have long been paid, but everyone still has to pay the tax. So it's not about whether you use 911 or not, its about everyone paying the tax.

Trev
AcroVoice & DryVoIP Official Rep
Premium Member
join:2009-06-29
Victoria, BC

Trev

Premium Member

said by jduffy:

So it's not about whether you use 911 or not, its about everyone paying the tax.

Not quite. The 911 fees that are discussed here are what providers have to pay third parties to get access to the 911 system. Little to none of that money actually goes to funding the PSAP itself.

Some cities have attempted to put a per-line tax on VoIP services to fund the 911 system, and some 911 providers collect this from their customers (ie. VoIP providers), but it's largely ignored and only affects a few end users.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO

Premium Member

said by Trev:

said by jduffy:

So it's not about whether you use 911 or not, its about everyone paying the tax.

Not quite. The 911 fees that are discussed here are what providers have to pay third parties to get access to the 911 system. Little to none of that money actually goes to funding the PSAP itself.

Right. And they do it for money. It's a profitable business for them and that's why some pitch that you "must" to buy this service and pay for it. I personally count on 911 on my cell phone, not on VoIP provider. Why should I pay for a service, that I'm not going to use?

Hal Houston
@optonline.net

Hal Houston

Anon

said by OZO:

It's a profitable business for them and that's why some pitch that you "must" to buy this service and pay for it.

Which type of companies are you referring to?

The companies that help phone companies (VoIP and even POTS) provide 911 service, make money. Companies such as Intrado. That's the business they are in.

By contrast, if you assume that the VoIP providers are making gobs of money from 911, that's not true at least according to the providers such as Voip.MS, CC, F9, and the others. All of them state that they are not making a profit on the service. It's your choice as to if you believe them; for myself I do. And all of them are pretty much in the same price range except for Anveo which either has figured some new solution or is doing it cheap as a loss leader.
said by OZO:

I personally count on 911 on my cell phone, not on VoIP provider.

I like to have more than one solution on hand.

Issues with cellphone 911 can include the fact that even in the best of circumstances, calls are not necessarily relayed to your local PSAP but to a county sheriff, state police, etc.

And all too often, the calls may end up in a totally wrong place because they may be picked up by a cell tower in the neighboring city or county.

Examples:

911 Official: Cell Phone Call Part Of Problem In EMS Delayed Response
»www.wral.com/news/local/ ··· /156052/

Cellphones 'difficult, frustrating' for 911 dispatch
»www.cbc.ca/news/canada/w ··· nes.html

So while cellphones are certainly useful as backup for 911, or when on the highway, I would otherwise not be so sanguine as to relying on them for regular 911 use.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO

Premium Member

I like to have more than one solution on hand.

Good for you and I'm 100% behind your right to make that choice. I'm just against the push to leave others without choices, they think they want/need.