Congress Looks To Move In On VoIP 911 Issue

from the didn't-expect-that dept

We'd mostly been ignoring the moves of Nuvio and some other smaller VoIP players to push back the deadline for implementing E911 service on VoIP lines. It wasn't that surprising. Just about every deadline the FCC sets, someone complains, and almost always, the FCC will roll over for a while. Eventually, as with wireless number portability, they'll say enough is enough, and companies will have to get their act together. What's surprising in this case, however, is that Congress appears to be getting involved, and is looking to pass legislation that would allow for a more gradual implementation of VoIP 911 service -- overruling the FCC. That's probably a better, more reasonable plan (who would have though we'd ever say that about a Congressional plan?!?), but it's quite surprising that Congress would even get involved. After all, Kevin Marin and the FCC turned the whole VoIP 911 issue into quite the political hot potato by highlighting stories of people dying because their VoIP 911 didn't work right. It seemed like the type of thing that no one would oppose, because you know that at some point an opponent would put together an attack ad about how this or that politician wanted to let people die by not mandating VoIP 911.

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