WASHINGTON-While wireless carriers had years to deploy enhanced 911 services (and still missed the mark), Voice over Internet Protocol carriers are expected to have only until fall if rules proposed by new FCC Chairman Kevin Martin are adopted by the full commission Thursday.
“If the Federal Communications Commission intends to impose a blanket E911 requirement in a short period of time, it is a drastic departure from the FCC’s E911 approach to wireless carriers, where the FCC formulated specific requirements over several years and in light of operational feasibility of the service providers. With wireless, the commission provided the industry with adequate time to develop and implement solutions prior to imposing federal liability,” said Jennifer Phurrough, outside counsel for EarthLink Inc. “A blanket rule requiring VoIP providers to become E911 compliant within 120 days would subject VoIP providers to enormous liability disproportionate to that imposed on wireline and wireless carriers.”
Martin reportedly proposed rules requiring VoIP providers to deploy E911 within 120 days or sometime this fall. The rules would apply to static VoIP services and non-wireless nomadic services.
Static VoIP service is in the home installed on a desktop where the customer can register his or her home address, which could be displayed at the public-safety answering point if the customer chose a local phone number. Customers who choose a “non-native phone number” are expected to be covered by the new rules. The easiest way to connect non-native static customers is to assign them shadow phone numbers either permanently or just when they dial 911.
Non-wireless nomadic service is when VoIP service is installed on a laptop and a customer takes the computer to a location other than his or her billing address but then is stationary once he or she arrives at, for example, a hotel. The easiest way to provide E911 to these customers is to require them to report their locations. While VoIP providers do caution against using 911 while nomadic, there is nothing preventing it. Again shadow numbers would be used so the PSAP recognizes a caller as local.
It is still technically infeasible to locate wireless nomadic services-when a customer is using wireless broadband to connect a VoIP call while nomadic or mobile-since global positioning system chips are not generally included in laptops. The FCC is expected to propose further E911 rules dealing with wireless nomadic VoIP customers.
Martin shocked the telecommunications industry last month when he told lawmakers that he wanted to impose E911 rules on VoIP providers at the May meeting scheduled for Thursday.
“The FCC will consider a first report and order and notice of proposed rulemaking concerning E911 requirements for IP-enabled services,” reads the May 19 agenda, which was released late Thursday.
AT&T Corp., which offers AT&T CallVantage, gave the FCC a timeline for provisioning E911-none of which met the expected 120-day deadline.
“If the FCC were to adopt a rule that required all customers to be provisioned E911 by a short-term date certain (e.g., 120 days), AT&T and other providers may have little choice but to terminate service to those customers,” said Robert Quinn, Jr., AT&T vice president of federal government affairs.
The commission had previously proposed requiring E911 as part of a larger set of rules on IP-enabled services, including law-enforcement access, disabilities access and universal-service obligations. Martin decided to strip out E911 and deal with that first after hearing about an incident in Houston where a couple was shot after their daughter could not dial 911 on their VoIP phone. The Texas attorney general is suing Vonage Holdings Corp. as a result of the incident for false advertising.
Martin told the lawmakers that because the FCC had previously said VoIP was an interstate service, it was up to the commission to determine what rules were necessary for the provision of E911.
VoIP providers have said they want to offer E911, but it is technically difficult. As a legal matter, VoIP said it should not be required to offer E911 since VoIP is an information service and thus not subject to telecommunications regulations. The FCC has not yet determined under what category VoIP falls, and it is unclear whether the E911 rules will make that distinction.
Vonage has engaged in an intense lobbying campaign to have the FCC require E911 operators-usually incumbent local exchange carriers-to provide access to E911.
“There is no question that all relevant policy considerations favor a rule requiring access to the 911 elements,” said William Wilhelm Jr., Vonage outside counsel. “The 911 operators have provided no reasonable justification to withhold 911 access, and there is none. There is no significant technical obstacle, and VoIP 911 access poses little inconvenience or expense; and to the extent it does, the benefit to the public greatly outweighs any such burden. The 911 operators, of course, can charge non-discriminatory rates to recover any costs they incur in providing access.”
