Does The FCC Know Cellular 911 Breaks?
from the i've-fallen-and-i-can't-get-up dept
During a snowstorm a couple weeks ago, Massachusetts' enhanced 911 system that takes calls from mobile phones broke down, leaving people on cell phones unable to reach the authorities and emergency services, apparently due to a fault in the Verizon system that routes calls. Now, Jeff Pulver's wondering if -- in light of its overreaction to some isolated incidents involving VoIP and 911 -- the FCC realizes that sometimes wireless 911 fails, too. Following the incidents with VoIP 911, the FCC gave providers 120 days to implement E911, while they've let mobile operators drag the process out for years. Of course, given the way the FCC enforces deadlines, all this just reinforces the idea that the FCC reacted rashly to the VoIP E911 issue.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
911 breaks, nothing new
It's a fallible system, and there's no getting around it.
That said, I think all telephone services NEED to comply with (attempted) 100% 911 accessibility. Some VOIP providers have clearly been unable/unwilling/disinterested in achieving this and I think the FCC is fully justified in riding them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: 911 breaks, nothing new
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Comcast is ok
Wether it works or not is another question entirely.
Hopefully I'll never find out either way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]