Vonage Puts VoIP 911 Caller on Hold

kamikaze-Tech writes "It is being reported on the Vonage Forums that last month when Loren Veltkamp's Chanhassen, Minnesota home caught on fire, he immediately called 9-1-1 using Vonage. Unfortunately, Vonage put him on hold, causing a delay in the response from emergency workers. By the time fire crews arrived, the fire had become a five-alarm blaze. The house was a total loss."

Dupe "Article"

This "article" is a duplicate thread on the Vonage Forum. The original thread [vonage-forum.com] has much more information.

Re:Dupe "Article"

If the poster had read a bit further, he would have found out This isn't a new story [vonage-forum.com] (same link as parent, but I had written this in notepad while wating for the story to come out of the mysterious future) AND the guy involved was a bit of an idiot who wouldn't know a five alarm fire from a small fire he could rescue a computer from. He probably caused more delay in the attempt to rescue his house by leading the police on a chase from front door, through kitchen, to basement and out a window than the delay caused by Vonage National 911 putting him on hold.

Anybody who only has Vonage without some form of backup line (either a bare bones land line or a cell phone) is a bit of a moron anyway- what would he have done if a candle lit the drapes on fire during a power outage?

Re:Dupe "Article"

Actually, it is common for someone to be in a fire, and underestimate the danger becasue some of the chemicals in the air make it so you can not smell the smoke.

When my mothers house caught on fire, She was sure she was fine to go back in, went in to get her keys so she could moce her car, coming back out they dragged her away. SHe kept saying it wasn't a big deal.

They dashboard in her car was melting.

My mother is not a moron. SHe's gt problems, but she is smart.
My point is, don't judge this guy based on this incident, many people feel they are 'safe enough' in a fire, when they are not.

Re:Dupe "Article"

My point was that a true five-alarmer would generate so much excess heat that NOBODY would have been able to enter the house. Let alone TWICE (first to get his computer, second to lead the police on a stupid chase). There's something that stinks about this story- and being put on hold by "Vonage" is the least of it.

Re:Dupe "Article"

The term "X alarm fire" is used to describe how serious a fire is. X refers to the number of fire stations that respond to the fire. So in the story, unless 5 fire stations responded to this blaze, someone is talking out of his arse.

Actually an alarm level isn't necessarily the number of stations involved, although that's a local definition for the most part. Urban and rural definitions can vary in terminology.

In many areas, especially cities and towns, one alarm level would typically bring 3 engines, 2 ladders a chief and a rescue or something similar. Probably at least 2 & 2 plus a chief. If they roll up and see a building fully involved (heavy volume of fire), the senior officer would likely bang out a second alarm on arrival and bring in another set of apparatus similar to the first (another 3&2, officer, etc). In a city, a 5-5 is a seriously major fire; 15 to 20 engine companies, 8-10 ladder trucks, air supply units, mask service units, a bevy of chiefs and officers, probably a canteen and a handful of special-use units. In a rural setting, probably water supply units and relay pumpers if the building involved ins't near a hydrant network, mutual aid from nearby towns, etc.

For a house fire, I would be surprised to see anything more than a second or third alarm unless there were kids trapped, hazmat materials in the shed and a team of strippers running the canteen. My guess is that probably there were five pieces of apparatus* on-scene and that became a Five Alarm job by some idiot reporter not familiar with the terminology.

*The term "apparatus" is used on this side of the Atlantic to describe a fire department vehicle of some kind or another (pumper, aerial ladder, tower ladder, quint, rescue squad, etc). In the UK, they use the term appliance. The first time I heard London Fire Brigade radio traffic requesting three more appliances on a job, I swear I was prepared in my mind to hear the dispatcher reply "Sending two toasters and a blender to your location, K."

Something i learned about smoke and fire.

If you are ever woken up by the smell of smoke/fire in your house, you have just about three minutes to get out before you die. Basicly, the amount of smoke and gasses in the air that are enough to wake you up are jsut slightly les then it takes to kill you.

Also, a tiny fire can turn life threatening in jsut a couple of minutes. Fire is not somehitn to be fucked with.

Fire: respect it or die

Actually, speaking as a former firefighter, it isn't common for folks to misunderstand how dangerous a fire can be. Most folks freak completely out. They panic, and make mistakes they should know better than to do.

Small grease fires take out a whole kitched because the panicked homeowner throws water on it, instead of something like flour.

It's simple Fight or Flight syndrome. Most folks run for it (flight), but without applying a thought process to what they are doing. Those that try to deal (fight) with it aren't usually trained to deal with it properly. Sometimes even those that ARE trained get caught by something they didn't expect.

Fires are nothing to mess around with. Those that have a healthy respect for them can deal with it once they are properly trained. Those that don't, tend to die, even with training. Just check out the number of firefighters that die each year due to really dumb things like buildings falling on them.

Most firefighter deaths (that aren't due to traffic accidents or heart attacks) were completely preventable. There's usually a cover-up, for the officers in charge, all the way down to even the victim's themselves. Nobody wants to tarnish a hero's legacy, even if said "hero" had their head up their ass and was in a place they should have known better than to be, or was doing something they shouldn't have done. The public doesn't end up knowing, but most of it ends up getting caught on tape by some bystander, and then the government ends up buying the tape rights so that it doesn't get on the 11 o'clock news. Then, they show it as training video, and tell us "See, these guys are dumbfucks, and so is their commanding officer". And yet, more than half the class would still make the same mistake.

Re:Dupe "Article"

Both look about the same to me:

A communication error occurred: "Operation timed out"
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.

Nothing to see here

This is no different than the 911 service on PSTN (regular phone service).

I've been put on hold at least 50-60% of the time I've called.

They're understaffed.

Re:Nothing to see here

And how many times did you call? 2 times and you where put on hold 50%-60%?

Or did you make enough calls to 911 to make it statiscly relevant? If so you where put on hold while they send out the police to arrest you!

Re:Nothing to see here

Or did you make enough calls to 911 to make it statiscly relevant? If so you where put on hold while they send out the police to arrest you!

Well, I don't know the original posters situation but I used to live by a dangerous intersection and called 911 at least once every couple weeks or so to report yet another accident in front of my house. So you can actually have a situation where you make a lot of 911 calls and still not be abusing the system.

BTW, I was never put on hold.

Re:Nothing to see here

I've called 911 more times than I'd like to admit, but I will anwayy

1988 or so, San Diego: "A car just flipped, spun 720 degrees, bouncing off the concrete barrier 3 times."
"Was anyone hurt?"

1990, Las Vegas: The dumpster behind my office is on fire!
"Where are you?"
"It doesn't show on your systems?"
"No,not here."

2002 or so, Pennsylvania: child drank "yucky water." handled reasonably.

Last year, Pennsylvania: barely & pre-teens camping in the yard, some moron terrorizing them. Well handled.

Last week: one of my students, in a contest to see who could jump the fartherest from the swing . . .

And there are a couyple more that don't come right to mind.

I've never been put on hold, though . . .

hawk

Re:Nothing to see here

Do you know how they defined emergency?

The imminent loss of life, limb or property. Or at least that is the standard in most locales. Breaking your wrist isn't an "emergency". Cutting it with a razorblade is.

The problem is they should ENFORCE fines for "obvious" misuse, such as calls for barking dogs, etc. No fines for borderline cases (ie: when there is an injury, extremely loud sound that could have been explosion, smell of gas, etc.) but for the very obvious.

At least $200 for a first time offense and going up another $200 for each subsequent non-emergency calls in a 3 year period. There are already enough laws on the books to cover this. The problem is that it is not enforced.

Same for people who don't pull over when an ambulance/firetruck is trying to get by, except considerably higher fines ($500 for the first offense that is without an affirmative defense). Not so ironic, people are usually quick to pull over to make room for the police...

Re:Nothing to see here

I've been put on hold at least 50-60% of the time I've called.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing -- that you were put on hold or that you have called enough times to be able to establish these percentages...

Re:Nothing to see here

Not really disturbing - I worked at ADT for a couple months awhile back and I could have established these kinds of percentages easily within a week if I was taking notes. And it wouldn't be for one city, it would have been across the entire nation. I think the longest I was ever on hold was 15 minutes for the LAPD.

Why VoIP?

Was this his only phone?
Any reason he didn't have access to another phone?
Traditionally you exit your burning house ASAP and call from a house next door...
-nB

Re:Why VoIP?

Irrelevant. FCC regulations require service providers to connect any 911 emergency calls. That's why you can [supposedly] connect a phone to a jack with no service and dial 911, or use a cell phone that has no account and dial 911. It is Vonage's responsibility to see that this happens each time every time. There is no burden on the consumer for this one. If Vonage doesn't like it, they can choose not to be in the telcom business in the US.

Now, some of the reports I've read do say that Vonage connected him, but that the operators put him on hold. In that case, Vonage is not to blame as they met the requirments of law.

Re:Why VoIP?

Irrelevant. FCC regulations require service providers to connect any 911 emergency calls. That's why you can [supposedly] connect a phone to a jack with no service and dial 911, or use a cell phone that has no account and dial 911. It is Vonage's responsibility to see that this happens each time every time. There is no burden on the consumer for this one. If Vonage doesn't like it, they can choose not to be in the telcom business in the US.

I work in the cell phone infrastructure business. It's not really FCC regulations that make it so, it's a requirement of the various cell phone technologies.

A cell phone recognizes 911 (and the other emergency numbers used around the world) as an emergency call, picks the closest tower and requests an emergency call. It's a different process than making a normal call and bypasses nearly all of the steps involved with making a call (including such things as authentication, determining if you are allowed access, if you are roaming or local, if you should be billed, and a host of other steps). If there is no capacity, the base station will disconnect a paying call to make room. Whether you have a SIM card in the phone or even an active account is irrelevant to the whole process.

When we test new systems and major software upgrades, we attempt emergency calls first. Not really because we want to make sure they work, it's because it's a lot easier to set one up!

Re:Why VoIP?

Traditionally you exit your burning house ASAP and call from a house next door...

"Next door" to my father's place is the farmhouse a mile down the road. "Next door" assumes you are in a condition to walk or drive. That your judgement is not impaired.

I have vivid memories still of my one and only experience with carbon monoxide poisoning.

that's just sad

Is he entitled to a lawsuit or do you guys think their 911 disclaimer is enough to stop any charges?

No lawsuit required!

They're giving him $20 credit and 7% off all his future 911 calls.

Amazing

They claim to be associating establishing a physical location with each E911, at so many counties per week. Yet someone on the blog points out in Ohio they're moving at a snail's pace and only in 4 rural counties. Sounds like my office, let's process ~1,500 applications, which average about 30 minutes each, by one person, who is being phased out due to lack of work. It done be amazing.

"please click on 1 if you have just seen bigfoot, click on 2 if a wolf has lept through your living room window, click 3 if you believe CowboyNeal is lurking under your bed, click 4 if you laughed so hard at the last South Park that you are choking on a cheezy poof, click 5 if you are so offended by the last South Park you are choking on a cheezy poof, click 6 if you think The Lakers is a stupid name for a team that moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles where there are no lakes, click 7 if your house is on fire and your children have flown, click 8 if you are suffering a medical emergency, click 9 if you are "dying zerelda, dying zerelda, die, die, die, die, die, die!!!" or stay on the line and listen to some light jazz until your connection is mysteriously dropped."

happens on POTS as well

try calling 911 on a POTS line or cell phone in any major city and see for yourself.

Vonage

I'm a Vonage customer and couldn't be more happy.

I've never experienced a loss or major call quality, even when my ISP hits 250-350ms ping (as they sometimes do!).

Though, I've never call 911 from it .. and I think I'd use my cell for that...

on hold

Tried to follow the link in the story, but the server put me on hold....

Next at 6...

It is being reported on the Vonage Forums that last month when Loren Veltkamp's Chanhassen, Minnesota home caught on fire, he immediately called 9-1-1 using Vonage. Unfortunately, Vonage put him on hold,

Next at 6: Slashdot links to Vonage-forum, forum webserver puts thousands on hold and THEN catches fire.

PS:Houses usually don't "catch" fire, like they're standing around and fire lands on them out of the blue. How'd the guy's house actually catch fire? Why didn't he have an extinguisher? Why didn't he hang up the phone and DIAL AGAIN?

PPS:The above is half serious and half spoofing the typical "apologist" line.

*Vonage* put him on hold?

I have had Vonage for well over a year, but have never dialed 911.

It is my understanding you are routed to your local PSAP.

not suprising.

I live about 6 minutes away from chanhassen, and the last time I called 911 I was put on hold. I called from a cell phone not voip so I'm geussing its just the local emergency services fault.

You know their stupid commercials...

...with that annoying music they play, showing people doing stupid things. And then they say, "People do stupid things..."

I think their new commercial should show a guy getting Vonage and then his house burns down, and then they say, "People do stupid things. Going with Vonage is one of them."

Regular 911 service is just as bad, or worse!

I had to call 911 a few times in the past few years, and every single time I've had nothing but trouble from them. One time when I witnessed a car accident and stayed to help, I called 911 because a woman at the scene had trouble getting out of her car (the door wouldn't open and her legs were pinned). The 911 operator *wouldn't believe* that she needed help and refused to send more than one police car. Luckily he came quickly and called for the proper help. Another time I had to call, I was transfered to the wrong emergency service. I needed the police, but was sent to the fire dept. While the fire operator was talking, the 911 operator interrupted the call and transfered me to the EMS! Again, interrupted and finally I got the police. Other times I've had operators who were rude and unhelpful.
So Vonage's 911 seems to be at par with the poor level of service given by the other 911 services.

Re:Regular 911 service is just as bad, or worse!

I have had a similar experience. Once I called 911 because I had lost my TV Guide and I needed to know when Seinfeld was on. They were totally rude and unhelpful.

Re:Regular 911 service is just as bad, or worse!

Once I called 911 to report an emergency, Livestock were wondering a highway durring rushhour. I was told by 911 that this wasn't an emergency and I should hangup and call animal control. So this required me making a call to 411 over my cell phone, which cost me $2.50. I was then connected to the local police department. Thank you so much 911. Next time I'll tell them I'll call back after the accident has happened.

A Five Alarm Fire?

Five Alarm?

Just how big was his house? The Santana Row fire in San Jose was a five alarm fire and that was huge.
Methinks there's a wee bit of exaggeration going on here.

The sign on the porch....

...of the burnt down house: 0wnage by Vonage :D

Same Problem in LA

A few weeks ago I was rear ended. The damage to my car was pretty extensive, so one of my passengers called 911 while I talked to the other driver. He was on hold for well over five minutes. When someone finally answered, he handed the phone to me. I talked for about 4 seconds before being cut off by the operator. The nice version is that if no one was bleeding or dead, she was hanging up to deal with more important calls.

The call centers are vastly understaffed, which isn't Vonage's fault, so people get put on hold. End of story.

This should surprise no one (911 horror stories)

This should surprise no one. 911 is not anywhere near as reliable as you think it could or should be. A friend of mine nearly cut off this thumb with a chop saw. He ran into the house, called 911, and .... it was busy. Rather than dick around bleeding (drip, drip), he called the one person he knew he could rely on: his office secretary (three cheers for secretaries!) She called the local ambulance service, they picked up, took him to the hospital, and after a little tendon reattachment surgery and months of rehab, he was good as new. No thanks to 911.

Why..?

Why would you call 911 that your house is burning down over VoIP? While its nice and good, it just doesn't replace a wired or even cell phone. Besides, what if when one was calling 911 and the cable modem was in the process of being melted?

"not-too-good dept"??

Looks more like a candidate for the "huge fucking lawsuit dept".

Try Billion 7402VGP (modem,router,voip box)

If he had been using the subj. modem device,
his emergency call might have been put through
to 911 directly, with Vonage out of the picture.

The feature is known as "Lifeline"...

I don't even use 911

Most cities and towns have emergency lines that connect you directly to your local dispatch center. If you call 911 from a cell phone or VoIP phone, you usually get connected to a central dispatch center that has to relay all the info to your local dispatcher. Even though E911 doesn't work when calling local emergency numbers, it will almost always save several minutes on emergency response times.

Obligatory Simpsons' quote

Flanders drives into his driveway and Bart panics, pleading with Lisa to leave. Instead she climbs the stairs, but Bart warns her she'll be trapped. He sees Ned looking angry, walking with an ax.

Bart: [watching Flanders] An ax. He's got an ax! I'll save you, Lisa! [tries to walk on his broken leg, falls back] Uh, I'll save you by calling the police. [dials 911]

Voice: Hello, and welcome to the Springfield Police Department Resc-u- Fone[tm]. If you know the name of the felony being committed, press one. To choose from a list of felonies, press two. If you are being murdered or calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line.

Bart: [growls, punches some numbers]

Voice: You have selected regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press one.

Something doesn't seem to fit

Looks like this person needed someone to blame. First off, this was not a five alarm fire. Thoes are just slightly bigger, usually apartment building or commerical wherehouses. More then one firetruck will arive at a five alarm fire, hense the name. One other kinda fishy thing is

"by the time fire crews arrived, the fire had become a five-alarm blaze. The house was a total loss."

which conficts with Veltkamps own statment in the local media:

"When I was ordered out of the building, I didn't want to comply with that," Veltkamp said. Fire crews convinced him to leave, but he later re-entered the home - followed by police. "They chased me in, saying they were going to taze me if I didn't come out," Veltkamp said. He then ran from police through the house, and escaped out of the basement.

It probably didn't help that the firecrews had to shoot water over trees at this house either video http://kstp.dayport.com/viewer/viewerpage.php?Art_ ID=165697&NoAds=true [dayport.com] local report http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S14441.html?ca t=1 [kstp.com]

Re:Something doesn't seem to fit

I think I read some details on that fire - the fire was through the roof when first-due rolled on-scene. Generally, if the fire has self-vented in all but a few specific types of construction - such a structure is considered a loser unless there are intact firewalls running all the way up to the peak, which is unlikely in a residence. Combine that with truss construction and engineered wood products (and this structure definately had trussing), the structure is automatically a write-off. With truss or engineered wood construction, crews are typically forbidden from entering the structure after 10 minutes of fire unless (1) there is a victim inside, AND (2) there's a prayer of saving them... and even then, we'll honestly consider if it's worth the risk, based on the time that has elapsed. Truss + Fire = 12 minute "roof falls onto you" deathtrap, and EWood + Fire = 4 minute "floor falls under you" deathtrap, period, no exceptions.

That's why, like you, I'm almost baffled that the police chased this idiot inside - but from the size of the structure in the video, half of the building could be flashing over while at the other end of it, you'd never know it. With a smaller structure, he'd not have gotten two steps into the door and still be able to see, let alone breathe all of the phosgene & methal-ethyl-kills-you shit in the air. Since neither he nor the cops needed rescue, it pretty much demands that "when fire crews arrived" the fire was at one end of the house (the end farthest away from the platform truck, judging by the extent of the burn there), and he was running into the near-end, which wasn't involved (or smoke filled) yet. That the fire vented itself so quickly is probably a major factor as to why the rest of the structure wasn't a lethal atmosphere, as well.

For your own fun - shooting the water over the trees wasn't really relevent; by the time you use a master stream (such as from the platform in the video) - those things flow anywhere from 1500 to 2500 gallons per minute - it's over.

Why, you ask?

One gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. Our truck is rated at 2500 GPM; from a draft, it can (real life) sustain around 2200 GPM; that's 17 thousand, 600 pounds of weight per minute that we're dumping onto the floor of that structure. A typical stream like that will be flowed for up to 5 or 10 minutes, since you're trying to suppress fire on the ceiling and walls - and most of the water is on the floor, in a structure that's already (heavily) compromised... and actively being further compromised, to boot. Five minutes... 88 thousand pounds, 44 tons of weight... that's like having, what, about 30 cars parked on that floor? Even if we do succeed in knocking down the fire, the odds of the structure surviving US is small, at best... and that's one master stream. If placement allows, we'll use two, plus (if warranted) a portable from the ground, shooting into a window.

So, apparatus placement didn't help much, as you said - but using THAT specific piece is typically a "fat lady singing" move when a residence is involved; the trusses (what few are left) in the video are a dead giveaway. A fire in that type of construction... first alarm should bring two engines and a truck; second alarm should bring an additional engine and truck (and water supply, if needed); third alarm brings coffee; fourth alarm brings donuts; fifth alarm brings pizza and fresh cell phone batteries - because if the first alarm crew couldn't nail it, it's moot. Steel Trussing sucks; Wood Trussing really, really sucks; the only thing worse is Engineered Wood.

For what it's worth, we have several similarly *stupid* houses in our district, that have little or no access for truck or engine placement - some, you cannot even fit a freakin E-One up the driveway, let alone a stick or platform truck. For those, we've added a trailer to our Mini brush-truck; 1500 feet of supply line, a bunch of gated water-theives, and four attack lines. If WE get stuck with a fire in such a place, our initial alarm will

We're sorry...

[deep operator recorded voice]We're sorry... the publicly-recognized essential service is no longer in service or has been disc...[/deep operator recorded voice]

In any event, all humor aside - wouldn't it feel pretty bad to have a *real* emergency and be put on hold? Perhaps there are holes in the story, and maybe it is even a bit blown out of proportion. However, if someone I love was in real danger, or if my home was on fire, I'd call 911. I haven't waded through the 50+ "green" pages in the phone book to find all the important direct-dial emergency numbers.

Call centers (including 911 dispatch) are woefully understaffed because of economics (public or private).

Loren Veltkamp ...

was convicted [findlaw.com] for assaulting a former tenant of his while performing a "citizen's arrest" for failure to pay rent. He appealed the case pro se, and unsurprisingly lost on his irrelevent legal arguments. The man seems to be a bit nutty, if not dangerous.

A better way to put it.

Woo hoo woo hoo hoo doesn't allow woooooooooo woo woo woo.

RTFA? What are you, crazy? This is Slashdot...

How'd the guy know it was Vonage putting him on hold and not the call center? When my cell fails it doesn't put me on hold or tell me if it is service or that number (kinda like an error 404). I just get something generic like "number could not be reached" or "please try again".

Light on details, heavy on hype, I should know

I see no conclusive evidence to blame Vonage.

TFA doesn't explain what "put on hold" is. This vague problem could be with any number of systems, which could belong to Qwest (very big here in Minnesota), or some other company. Or , to echo other comments, the 911 center in Chanhassen ould have been understaffed and may have put the caller on hold.

Moreover, KSTP Channel 5 has shitty sensationalist news. I live in Saint Paul MN. In my opinion, Channel five news is a joke. The news team offers interesting headlines without necesary details in the actual stories.

In conclucsion, readers, please don't give this ancedotal /. story any consideration; there simply aren't enough details, and I think the station that first reported the story isn't trustworthy for detailed, accurate stories.

A predictable problem

At the risk of being modded down, I will now violate three /. conventions in this reply:
1) I will address the larger issue raised her;
2) I will not speak in a narrowly US-centric viewpoint;
3) I will not attack other viewpoints by sematic arguments and hair-splitting.

The larger - issue: Emergency calls by VOIP raise predictable problems that are being addressed by competent telephone service providers. Most nations have an emergency number (911 in the US, 000 in Australia, 999 in Britain, 112 in France etc). Locating an emergency call from a wired connection is trivial - look it up in the database. Locating a call from a mobile is a little trickier, but you can narrow the call down to the base station and perhaps even triangulate from there. But a VOIP call could be from anywhere.

Most telcos are trying to find solutions and the ITUhttp:/// [http]http://www.itu.int/> have been sponsoring discussion on this. The obvious solution involves matching the IP address to a location, but dynamic addresses, NATs etc make this problematic.

Telcos report that 90% of emergency calls are hoaxes or misdirected. In some places the call centres are under-resourced, staff are ill-trained or lack language skills and may be located at a great geographical distance from the caller. Some genuine callers are foreigners with no local language, others are panicky or just stupid.

Voip also often suffers from dropped packets, latency or poor audio quality. There may be compatability issues with the PSTN.

The underlying problem is that VOIP is an evolving technology and the market is driving development. Emergency call centres are typical telco institutions designed for a structured, centrally-directed system where development proceeds at a leisurely pace - thats how the phone system has always worked. I predict that governments will start to mandate location-specific data for VOIP protocols to fix this.

That's life

I called 911 the other day to report a ladder in the middle of the freeway. My call wasn't answered for over 2 minutes. So Vonage putting someone on hold doesn't seem so bad. I've asked and the 911 operator says it is the correct number to dial to report these things (in Calif).

WTF?

disclaimer: I work in the telecom field.

Vonage put the call on hold?? Or was it the 911 operator?
I wasn't aware Vonage operated 911 call centers. Do they have SLAs with emergency responders?
If Vonage [equipment] didn't answer the call, they were just providing the transport.

Next time the wife hangs up on me am I supposed to call Cingular and open a trouble ticket
for dropped calls on my cell phone?

Please.

Fire Department Hold Music

Not entirely the same situation, but a similar thing happened to a friend of mine while we were in college. At the career placement center, where he worked, a wastebasket caught on fire, so they called 911. And got routed to Public Safety, the college's security office. And were immediately put on hold. By the time the dispatcher got back to them, someone had put out the fire.

As regards some of the people commenting in the thread quoted above that there was likely substantial delay in the dialing of 911, consider also that, under stress, it can take people a fair amount of time just to get those three digits right. In an emergency, most people get fairly clumsy with fine motor movements, one of those reasons that those personal safety devices can be pretty useless in a mugging situation unless you've trained yourself over and over again to pull it out without having to think about it.

Scare tactics.

I wonder how much SBC/ATT and Verizon have spent making sure this BS story keeps getting dredged up. Cowboy Neal is either a sucker or a stooge for posting this.

911?

Carl: "Oh, and don't bother calling 911 any more...here's the _real_number." [hands Homer a card with "912"]

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

Oddly enough CNN has this article: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/24/tennessee.911.ap/ index.html [cnn.com] "Thousands of calls to Chattanooga's 911 call center have been going unanswered, according to records examined after a caller was unable to report a kitchen fire because three of four dispatchers were taking breaks at the same time."

911 use to hang up on my daughter too

This happened frquently and I had to teach her to just be persistant and keep phoning until they listened. Her mom was very ill. Crap like this does happen and often they don't get it right.

Where there is smoke...

There may not be fire...

We are told, when getting Vonage, that 911 service may not be available
A: If the internet goes down
B: If the power goes out

Then there is the difference between E911 and 911...

I think several people have already commented that you should keep Fire/Police/Ambulance on the SPEED DIAL as well as 911.
Just about every week you see or read a story about a 911 operator hanging up on someone or getting facts wrong, or a disconnect on the line.
We aren't helpless, and that is all 911 has done for us. We rely on it instead of thinking for ourselves...

Then Cell Phones, well, they have a worse reputation than Vonage with 911. You call, and some operator MIGHT answer, if you have signal...
And if there is the "general" operator, they will want to know what city you are in so they can TRANSFER you to that locality.
Then you have to know the address or close intersection or mile marker...

If you ask me, this will be blown up to make Vonage look bad, but in reality, the 911 service is more relaible via POTS or VoIP than it is on a cell phone.

Here was my cell phone 911 call:
Operator 1: 911 what is the emergency?
Me: A van is starting on fire, there is lots of smoke
Operator 1: what city are you in?
Me: Kirkland, Washington...
Operator 1: Would you like to be connected to Kirkland 911?
Me: um, sure...
(now the van has erupted into flame)
Operator 2: 911 what is your emergency?
Me: A van is burning in the parking lot...
Operator 2: would you like to be connected to Kirkland Fire Department?
Me: uh, sure...
(flames have now engulfed the entire engine area, the fuel line has ruptured and gass is burning in puddles under the van)
Operator 3: Kirkland Fire Department, is this an emergency call?
Me: yes, there is a van burning in the parking lot, it might explode
Operator 3: Please call 911
Me: I did, they sent me to you
Operator 3: Where are you located
Me: (address)
Operator 3: Ok, we will dispatch a unit to your location...

Bruce Willis

Wait, wait, I've seen this one!
It's because the "terrorist" has wired the fake bomb at the primary school so that it responds to police communication frequencies. But then someone puts it in the news and 911 gets totally overloaded with traffic from worried parents. Like a ddos.
I suspect 50-60% would just have to hold in such a situation.
They're gonna have to wait anyway, till that fat guy with the glasses finds out that it's just a fake one. The real one is one that tanker where the gold - supposedly - is.
But Bruce Willis knows better.

You get what you pay for...

IIRC, Vontage users don't pay a 911 taxation fee. Therefore, they do not pay to operate the 911 centers. I think this is a situation of you get what you pay for. Governments have to fund the 911 service, and they have rightfully decided to do so with a standard phone line tax.

I hate vonage

I know this is a little off topic, but just wanted to rant. Vonage has horrible policies, they claim no contract, but their is a $39.99 fee plus tax! to cancel. I got rid of them for just a cell and they were rude and charged this fee to cancel. I remember when it didn't cost money to stop getting a service. Save yourself some hassle and pass on Vonage.

Just use your cellphone

Cellphones work fine for 911. Vonage warns everyone when they sign up that their 911 isn't your ordinary, garden variety 911. I would never use my Vonage for 911 unless it was my only option. Luckily, alarm companies require a landline so I have an old phone hooked up just for such an emergency. The unlimited long distance is just too good to pass up when you and your living-in-sin girlfriend's families live a thousand miles away. Man, that girl can talk.

My 911 Works Fine

I went on Vonage's web site, followed their directions to make sure my address was in the correct database. I then called 911 from my phone, told them it was not an emergency and asked them to verify the address I was calling from. They gave me back my address right away. No problem.

Calling 911 from home....

I'm sorry, but when I was a kid the firefighters always used to tell us to leave the house, make sure that everyone is out, and then have a neighbor call 911. Had he done this, he probably would have had time to come back and rescue his computer.

I understand that this may not apply in situations where it is a rural location and your closest neighbor lives a couple of miles away, but looking at his house from google maps... it seems like this is not the case.

Re:Who needs 911?

You can usually do both- just call your local phoneco and ask for a emergency-only line that only dials 911 and 0. Also known as Basic Dial Tone Service, it will cost you someplace between $0-$12/month, depending on whether or not they force you to get local dialing with it or not, and what taxes apply. Don't forget to plug in an old fashioned WIRED phone to the line, so that you have service in case of a power outage as well.

Re:Who needs 911?

It used to be that in california you were chared 2.30 dollars for a line that you could only dial 911, and the phone company.

So you might want to look into that.

Re:Who needs 911?

I'm sure you can get a cell phone and keep the batteries charged for less than $12/month.

Re:Who needs 911?

Plug a phone into your wall outlet, or if you have a spare disconnected cell phone, keep it charged and make sure your family knows where it is. 911 service works on any phone line in the U.S. even if the service is not activated. We have Vonage, but we also have a backup phone plugged into the wall. The Internet is something I would want to rely on in an emergency.

Re:Who needs 911?

1. Having a choice in the matter helps. I despise the service being government mandated by the FCC on my behalf.

2. Who says you don't have access to emergency services? You almost certainly have a phone with autodial abilities. Have one for the fire department, police, and medical. This was how life was BEFORE 911. We didn't have civilization on the brink of chaos before 911 services. One usefull implementation of 911 applies to cell phones, and I'm wary of that, too.

Nope.

wouldn't you pay $12.00 a month extra to be able to access emergency services??

Not hardly worth $12/month. Maybe $1/month, tops.

RTFA - He was on "hold"...

He was in the house because he was on hold. It said so, right in the summary.

Re:Who needs 911?

Just buy a regular el-cheapo cell phone. Most of them can make outgoing 911 emergency calls without having a sim card in them.

Re:Don't forget...

...to factor in all the nasty taxes they keep adding on as "fees" that bump up the cost considerably.

Re:Disclaimer?

>Doesn't vonage make sure to state that their service is not meant for emergency or 911 calls?

The problem is, the "service" is a telephone at the endpoint where a person uses it. That person is not necessarily the person to whom Vonage has communicated this disclaimer. It looks like a telephone. The person who dials 911 on that telephone expects it to work, and at that point, it's a matter of life or death that it works, and the service provider does have a responsibility to not put that call on hold, arbitrarily drop the connection, or route it to a call center a thousand miles away.

Re:Who needs 911?

Why don't you have access to 911 services? All VoIP phone providers are required to provide E911 service, which will connect to the exactly same call center a POTS would. All you have to do is enter your full and correct address in the VoIP provider's system.

I am using Packet8 [packet8.net], and I have full 911 service.

Re:Should have tested it as soon as he installed i

Excellent idea, but if you don't know the 911 Dispatch Manager, how would one go about scheduling a test 911 call? (I'm actually thinking of the educational possibilities for my kids, since I don't have VoIP.)

Re:Should have tested it as soon as he installed i

I've been using Packet8 for over a year now, and have had very few (and none recent) sound quality problems. I've never tested 911, but they are going to introduce a number (933) for people using Packet8 to call that will verify their 911 info.

One thing I do recommend for people who are using a VoIP service, is that you have a dedicated UPS for your phone (if it requires AC power; mine does), cable or DSL modem, and router. I have one, and when we had a power outage of over three hours recently when multiple transformers in this area failed, I had phone service throughout.

For that matter, even if you have a POTS line, if your phone requires AC power to work, put it on a UPS. A small one will do, and it could save your life some day.