November 9, 2005

The Federal Communications Commission said late Monday that Voice over Internet Protocol carriers do not have to cut off service to customers in areas where enhanced 911 is not available.

However, VoIP carriers cannot market to or sign up new customers in those areas.

Nov. 28 is the deadline established by the FCC for VoIP carriers to offer E-911.

There had been some confusion as to whether VoIP carriers had to cut off customers in areas where E-911 was not yet available.

Nuvio Corp. and other VoIP carriers recently appealed the FCC's rules. There was also waiver language included in a bill passed Nov. 2 by the Senate Commerce Committee, which still must be adopted by the full Senate and the House of Representatives.

Public-safety representatives were clearly not happy with the turn of events.

"We wish to make clear our position.

We continue to strongly support the FCC's VoIP E-911 rules and the need for the commission to maintain its authority to enforce the rules, including the Nov. 28 compliance deadlines.

In particular, we do not believe that a waiver of current FCC rules should be granted to permit a VoIP provider to sign up new customers or offer new service in areas where it cannot meet current FCC requirements," said the National Emergency Number Association and the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials.

VoIP providers were shocked earlier this year when the FCC mandated they provide access to E-911 without mandating access to the public-safety answering point routers controlled by incumbent wireline carriers.

The commission rules require incumbent local exchange carriers to offer access to the 911 network to other telecom carriers.

ILECs are not required to offer access to VoIP providers that consider themselves to be information services.

In June, the FCC gave VoIP service providers until Nov. 28 to provide E-911 capabilities to their subscribers and required them to advise every subscriber of the circumstances under which VoIP E-911 service may not be available or may be limited compared with traditional E-911 service.

VoIP firms also were ordered to keep a record of acknowledgement of the advisory for every subscriber.

Meanwhile, the FCC is considering several waiver requests from wireless carriers that chose the handset option to provide their end users with E-911.

These carriers say they will not be able to meet the Dec. 31 deadline to have 95 percent of the handsets in use on their networks to be location capable.

Source: RCR News