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VoIP for 911 & 411
Services
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One of the challenges with VoIP is how it
handles calls to 911 and 411 services, in fact only
a few Service Providers presently support these.
While the use of 411 may be nothing more than a
minor inconvenience to many people, 911 can be a
matter of life and death.
Of those Providers that do provide 911 support,
there are a number of known challenges simply
because of how VoIP works. In VoIP, your number is
tied to the specific Telephone Adapter or VoIP-designed
phone that drives your service.
First of all you must tell your Provider the
physical location of your line for 911 dialing to
function. Even then your call does not go the
regular 911 operator but to a call handling center
(the closest one to your physical location on file),
and while you may get priority on your call being
answered, it’s not the same as a regular 911 call.
Next, when you reach the call center you not only
have to give them the nature of your emergency, but
also your physical address because they do not have
that information on file and cannot tell it from
your call.
Because VoIP is a portable service (say you take
your VoIP Adapter on a trip from Los Angeles to New
York), then your emergency call is still routed to
your local physical address (the Los Angeles Call
Center) which can cause a delay in getting emergency
services to you.
Finally, if there is any power outage at the
location that you are using the phone, or a service
connection failure by the Internet Broadband
Provider for that location, your VoIP service and
911 will not work.
For those Service Providers that do offer 411, some
now offer ‘Enhanced Directory Assistance’ for their
customers, usually for a per-call fee of around a
$1.
These enhanced services can include:
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Residential and business phone listings |
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Movie Listings |
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Weather Forecasts |
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Horoscopes |
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Sports Scores and News |
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Stock Quotes and Information |
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Lottery Results |
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Airline Flight Times |
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Time of Day Anywhere on Earth |
Obviously it’s up to you to decide whether that call
is worth $1!
Since we recommend that you keep a regular phone
line service anyway (see
Power Outages
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