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

from the ah,-the-little-details dept

Wed, May 25th 2005 11:45am — Mike Masnick

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.

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4 Comments

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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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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