Top VoIP carriers must have 911 in Them

Most VoIP users do not have the convenience of a 911 emergency call. This is a hard fact that users have to contend with as well as hope that they do not need to use anytime in the near future, or better yet forever.

Why? It is because, compared to when an emergency call is made through a traditional phone line, a VoIP-made 911 call does not immediately provide a 911 dispatcher a person’s name and address.

Fortunately, this predicament is being solved by the marriage of VoIP technology with GPS thereby providing VoIP users who call 911 with their name and address immediately to the dispatcher, without the latter needing to ask for it.

Believe it or not, the US FCC has ordered that VoIP users be provided with a 911 facility that is enhanced in the sense that providers will have to have their customers addresses on file.

Some of the providers who have complied to the FCC ruling is RNK Telecom. It is now working with a company, specifically One Star Tracking, to make a VoIP and GPS device rolled into one. They are to call it: Edison.

This product called Edison is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and it is to be placed between a conventional telephone and a modem. The VoIP service provider is then ping-ed with the user’s location (the specific latitude and longitude, as well as altitude) at least every ten minutes.

This info is then converted by the VoIP service provider to an actual address and then uses this data to match with the address earlier provided by the client. The appropriate address is then transmitted to the database called ALI or Automatic Location Identification where the details are then used by the personnel who will respond to the emergency.

The following are few of the VoIP carriers that carry the 911 emergency system, or at least any form of emergency VoIP phone support.
AOL TotalTalk is one VoIP service provider that carries an enhanced 911 support.

Vonage meanwhile is another VoIP service provider that, though does not carry a 911 emergency support system, has their own emergency number that Vonage users could readily avail of.
However, users need to register their home addresses to Vonage. Also, in case of any form of power electricity failure, Vonage services – as well as their emergency service – will not be available.

SunRocket, another US-based VoIP service provider that outsources most of its technical as well as sales supprt to the Guam and Philippines, also has a 911 emergency call available in its package. They have therefore complied with the regulations established by the FCC. However, just like Vonage, users of the system need to first register their address with SunRocket and in the event of any form of power or electric failure, services of SunRocket will not be available.

All in all, availing of VoIP emergency calls is not as easy that at times a standard and conventional telephone line seems a lot better than a more technologically advanced VoIP service.

It is best therefore to stick to the service provider that offers 911 emergency calling system that is readily available whenever and wherever it is you may need it. At the same time hoping that such an occasion would not be necessary at all.