AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, and E911
The FCC's recent “interconnected VoIP” order is a remarkable piece of drafting. The order, in a nutshell, requires “interconnected VoIP” providers to deliver their customers' 911 calls to a “local” emergency operator, and to provide that operator with the callback number and location information of the customer.
The Commission says it will decide later what its basis for jurisdiction is (while asserting strongly that it of course has jurisdiction over “interconnected VoIP” providers). It says it won't shield “interconnected VoIP” providers from liability under state laws. It doesn't set rates or otherwise control what the essential facility provider – the incumbent local telephone company — may do to hold up VoIP companies seeking access to special emergency communications equipment. The VoIP provider will need that access in order to meet the order's requirements.
What's “interconnected VoIP”? Just four elements: (1) the service enables real-time, two-way voice communications; (2) the service requires a broadband connection from the user’s location;(3) the service requires Internet Protocol-compatible equipment (a PC); and (4) the service offering permits users generally to receive calls that originate on the traditional telephone network and to make calls to the traditional telephone network.
So, even if you're providing a free VoIP service, and even if you don't give your users a traditional telephone number, if you make it possible for your users to call traditional telephone numbers (and receive calls from that network), blam – you're covered. The beloved SkypeOut may be covered if it allows calls both to and from traditional telephone numbers. (Skype is rumored to be considering a merger with Yahoo!.) Any IM service that uses traditional telephone numbers is covered. No matter where your customers are — even if they're traveling at 90 mph down a lonely Montana freeway — you better be able to tell the right someone exactly where your customer is.
Eventually, the FCC says, that location information will have to be automatically available. For now, the customer will need to tell the provider where he/she is. Which is unworkable and shows how silly the application of E911 requirements to nomadic VoIP is.
Most people seem to think that meeting the order's requirements in the required 120 days will be impossible for all VoIP companies other than Vonage. VoIP providers in the US will have to negotiate separate contracts with 6000 emergency answering points, persuade the Bells to give them access to the necessary facilities at a sensible cost, and load up routers and databases with the right information. And compliance will be sufficiently expensive to make it no longer worthwhile to do business — unless you're Vonage.
AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! are all offering or planning to offer various VoIP products, seamlessly integrated with their IM platforms. If they've made deals to get calls to traditional phone numbers (and receive them), blam, they're covered by this scheme.
This seems to be an unprincipled and blatantly political order designed to protect the incumbents' ability to control the market for online voice services. Although the Commission is coy about the basis for its jurisdiction (how strange is that?), to the extent it decides to lean on Title I the DC Circuit has already said harsh things about the FCC's overreaching in that statutory context. It's a good bet that a good lawyer could attack jurisdiction effectively here.
No user of an IM client expects to be able to reach 911. There, I've said it. I don't, you don't — we just don't. Even if we're calling familiar phone numbers. These online offerings are just not substitutes for phone service. They're much better. And they shouldn't be saddled with impossible, fantastical emergency response requirements in the absence of a clear Congressional statement. We should be very worried about a Congress that would be willing to make such a statement.
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On the Skype account page, there's a notice in bold that states: Skype is not a telephony replacement service and cannot be used for emergency dialing.
Dunno how the FCC feels about that…