By The Way? Traditional 911? Doesn't Always Work Great Either

from the ah,-the-little-details dept

With all the furor, lawsuits, and grandstanding over VoIP 911 service leading to the recent FCC mandate, it's worth noting that the type of problems experienced by VoIP providers, aren't just limited to VoIP providers. It seems that regular traditional 911 service has the same problems -- so it's not exactly clear what problem has been "solved" by forcing VoIP providers to provide the same service. Sure makes for good headlines, though. The problem isn't necessarily with VoIP, but with the 911 system. Maybe if police departments actually spent the money allocated on 911 systems on 911 systems, instead of dry cleaning bills, ballpoint pens and winter boots, this wouldn't be such an issue. We're all for making our emergency systems better, but falsely placing the blame on "VoIP" doesn't actually solve the problem.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    eeyore, 25 May 2005 @ 11:53am

    No Subject Given

    Considering that the article about diverted funds was written by Michelle Delio I'd take that with a grain of salt too.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Mike (profile), 25 May 2005 @ 12:04pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      Good point! Hadn't noticed that...

      Though, it sounds like the basic facts were confirmed, concerning the audit. It was just some of the sources that weren't confirmed.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    cliff, 25 May 2005 @ 12:10pm

    911 article

    You can't blame the police departments like you are in this article for the inappropriate use of 911 taxes. The police dept's aren't the ones collecting or enforcing it, but the city/county government. They are the ones taking the funds and not giving it to the proper agencies to be used. Instead they collect the tax and then say to the 911 centers (which are not always police departments like here in my county, its all civilians not with PD or Fire or Ambulance services) "sorry we are running shorter this year on funds so make due".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 May 2005 @ 8:33pm

    No Subject Given

    I am assuming the E911 spec has details on denial of service attacks etc.

    Seems like a good target for a remote attack.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.