By AKWELI PARKER
Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania)
Vonage Holdings Inc., of Holmdel, N.J., said today it has turned on emergency 911 service in more than 1,900 areas nationwide for users of its Voice Over Internet Protocol phone service.
Vonage and other providers of Internet phone calling have come under fire because their services do not necessarily link up with a user’s local emergency 911 call center. Numerous tragedies have been linked with VoIP phone users’ inability to dial 911.
Often, users must sign up through a Web site to have their information entered into a local 911 database.
Some companies, such as Comcast, include automatic 911 registration with purchase of their phone service.
The Federal Communications Commission declared in June that VoIP providers would have 120 days to provide “enhanced” 911 service to all of their customers, a process which requires linking up with existing 911 dispatch centers or creating such centers from scratch.
The enhanced E911 service shows the caller’s phone number and address to an operator.
While most VoIP companies appear to have started toward meeting the FCC requirement - there are dozens in the United States alone - many said the timeframe was unrealistic and have yet to meet it.