FCC Postpones E911 VoIP Customer Cutoffs

On Aug. 26, the FCC postponed the end-of-August deadline for VoIP service providers to turn off any customers that had not formally acknowledged that they understood the nature of their E911 services. The new deadline is Sept. 28, 2005.

The FCC’s action came as service providers, in progress reports to the agency, revealed that 10 percent to 20 percent of subscribers still had not responded to repeated requests for acknowledgment. The FCC, therefore, was faced with the prospect of cutting off phone service to several hundred thousand customers, an action that would have brought an outcry. Under those circumstances, the agency postponed the deadline.

Meanwhile the agency, without a press release, posted in the Federal Register deadlines for comment on petitions for reconsideration or clarification of its original VoIP E911 order. The notice came after the VON Coalition, an industry organization, and the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) filed a “clarification request” with the FCC on July 9. The two organizations had outlined “areas where we felt clarification could help accelerate the solution,” says Jim Kohlenberger, executive director of the VON Coalition.

The issues that the two organizations asked the FCC to review and clarify included:

• the requirements when a PSAP is unable to use data, such as automatic number identification (ANI) or automatic location information (ALI) data. A PSAP may not have the technical capability to receive the information or it may not be able to receive updates to that information in a timely manner.
  
  
• access to Master Street Address Guide (MSAG) data for VoIP providers. According to NENA and the VON Coalition, the order does not specifically require that VoIP providers have access to that data.
  
  
• access to selective routers via the PSTN, if it is not possible to install dedicated trunks. Some selective routers are out of capacity for additional trunks. In other cases, it may not be possible to install trunks by the Nov. 29 deadline. As an interim alternative, the two organizations are suggesting that VoIP providers be allowed to access the routers via the PSTN.
  
  
• allowance of VoIP providers to obtain accurate registered locations automatically if they are capable of doing so. This would allow a service provider to use the latest location information obtained automatically in preference to the location the customer has formally registered. There have been various systems proposed for obtaining information automatically, including GPS systems, data from Wi-Fi base stations and IP address data from the Internet.

Other organizations also asked for clarifications, including CompTel/ASCENT. Comments opposing the petitions are due by Sept. 15 and replies are due 10 days after that.

Asked about the questions raised by the telecom organizations, spokespersons for the FCC mostly refused comment, saying, “the order speaks for itself.”

The motivation for the FCC delay, says Kohlenberger, was that there may not have been a safety advantage in cutting off service to those customers. “Most, we believe, already have an E911 service, and we thought that people who may be on vacation or in advance of a hurricane could be in harm’s way, if service were shut off. So we asked the FCC to delay that deadline, and they did. And, as [Hurricane] Katrina moved forward, it became clear that turning on VoIP was more important than turning it off.”

Liabilities for Providers

Several VoIP providers have raised the same questions as NENA and the VON Coalition, as well as questions about liability, specifically liability protection, which is missing from the FCC order.

One area of concern is liability if a customer’s phone service is cut off under the FCC order, such as consumer-protection regulations in some states, as well as negative impact on a business or inability to call for assistance. “Some states may have limitations and don’t want someone’s phone service shut off,” says Kohlenberger. “The State of Florida raised these concerns with the FCC.”

Because the original FCC order on E911 did not address liability, there may be action in Congress. On Sept. 1, there was a hearing in the Senate about VoIP and E911 that addressed the issue and related to legislation introduced by Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). That bill “is important because it does give VoIP providers and PSAPs the same liability protection as others,” says Kohlenberger. “Some PSAPs refuse to answer VoIP calls because of liability issues.”