Internet Phones, 911 Systems Could Clash

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This can, and will, be a major problem in the near future for us too.

Internet Phones, 911 Systems Could Clash    

Associated Press  

 

ST. PAUL - The rising popularity of Internet telephones could undermine the finances of the state's 911 systems while endangering some users because the new technology doesn't alway mesh with the old emergency system.  

So-called Internet telephony's popularity worries Jim Beutelspacher, manager of the statewide 911 program for the Department of Public Safety, because it doesn't pay a 40-cent-per-month tax for each new subscriber.  

Last fiscal year, a 33-cent 911 fee generated $20.8 million. The higher fee this year is expected to bring in $25.4 million, mainly to pay for connections to public safety call centers, Beutelspacher said.  

But if more people drop their regular telephone service in favor of tax-free Internet calling, the financial underpinnings of 911 will be weakened, he said.  

The problems have been noted within the industry, but it's expected to become a bigger issue as more people turn to Internet telephony because it can be cheaper than regular telephone service.  

The Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) last week kicked off a process to study regulating Internet telephony. Meantime, federal authorities say states cannot regulate or tax these growing services.  

The Metropolitan 9-1-1 Board, created more than 20 years ago to help manage the seven-county metro area's 911 system, said Tuesday that consumers may not be aware of the shortcomings of Internet phone services, sometimes called voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP.  

"It's buyer beware," said Pete Eggimann, director of 911 services for the board.  

Because Internet telephony connects regular phones to computers and requires high-speed Internet access, it is vulnerable to power outages or interruptions in broadband service.  

Some Internet phone services offer a substitute form of 911 calling but they often cannot provide a street address to 911 dispatchers in so-called enhanced or e-911 service, Eggimann said.  

Internet telephony also can confuse 911 systems because subscribers may use out-of-state area codes to make long distance calls look like local calls. A St. Paul subscriber could have a New York City area code, for instance.  

Internet telephony doesn't use special lines reserved for public safety call centers, so it sometimes substitutes administrative lines that change numbers without warning, Eggimann said.  

The board cited an Internet 911 call that failed last November for Jean Bye, a New Brighton woman with Internet phone service by Vonage, the country's leading voice-over-Internet Protocol provider with 100,000 subscribers nationwide and about 500 in Minnesota.  

Bye said she had to go to her neighbor's house to make a 911 call when her husband was missing one night. He later was found unconscious, overcome by smoke in the garage, where he sometimes puttered on projects at night.  

The problem, Bye said, was that while she had signed up for Vonage's 911 service initially, she didn't realize she had to re-apply once Vonage gave her their old home phone number a few months later as she requested.  

"I didn't read the fine print," she said.  

Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schulz said that Vonage notifies all its customers that its service does not automatically include 911, and that when they sign up for Vonage's special 911 service, it won't work like 911 from a regular telephone.  

"We tell people that if you need e-911 service, you should keep your old phone line or have some other way of accessing 911, such as with a cell phone," Schulz said.  

Schulz said that Qwest Communications International is blocking Vonage from access to the databases and special routers that would give it direct access to the state's 911 system, but Qwest denied the accusation.  

The increasing popularity of Internet phone services has prompted large phone companies such as Qwest and AT&T, as well as cable companies such as Comcast and Time-Warner to start their own Internet telephone services. Qwest began offering a 911-less voice-over-Internet service in Minnesota in December and plans to expand it to the rest of its 14 states with basic 911 service later this year, spokeswoman Cyndi Barrington said.  

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I saw something similar America's Most Wanted a month or so ago. They had a Special Report on Nextel Phones and Towers.

Apparently a lot of the Nextel Phones and Towers utilize a 800 MHz band. This is close to some Law Enforcement, Fire, EMS, and Gov't bands. Too close!

They are trying to get Nextel to make a switch of there equipment to another band. FCC is involved and it's a big mess. No one want's to make the band switch cause of $$$$. It showed a Police Officer who could not reach HQ, He was calling in a 10-13 (Officer Needs Assistance) Some other bad situations too. In all cases no one could get thru to Dispatch.

Does anyone use 800 MHz around here and find problems?