Comment Definitely a good thing (Score 2, Interesting) 297
The comparisons with cellphones (and there lack of 911 location information) needs to take a few point into consideration:
1. Calls from cellphones to 911 typically go the State Police dispatcher who will then have to contact the local dispatcher to actually send someone (other then the state police) to the caller. This takes extra time and puts one more person in the game of 'telephone' that is played from 911 requester to 911 provider.
2. Adding VOIP to the State police dispatcher will make them even more overwhelmed when the majority of VOIP calls are going to be made from a fixed location and as such should be routed to a local dispatcher.
3. Many times when someone calls 911 they give a poor, incomplete or inaccurate assessment of what the problem is (and where they are), ask any first responder how many calls are completely different from what they get dispatched as (As a volunteer ems provider, I experience this all time).
This gps talk is cute, but how about we simply add an address that needs to be associated with the VOIP account when its opened but can be disabled by a user if they want, so the small minority of VOIP users that are moving it around can 'opt-out' of it while grandma has it in place for here vonage account her grandson set up for her at her home.
1. Calls from cellphones to 911 typically go the State Police dispatcher who will then have to contact the local dispatcher to actually send someone (other then the state police) to the caller. This takes extra time and puts one more person in the game of 'telephone' that is played from 911 requester to 911 provider.
2. Adding VOIP to the State police dispatcher will make them even more overwhelmed when the majority of VOIP calls are going to be made from a fixed location and as such should be routed to a local dispatcher.
3. Many times when someone calls 911 they give a poor, incomplete or inaccurate assessment of what the problem is (and where they are), ask any first responder how many calls are completely different from what they get dispatched as (As a volunteer ems provider, I experience this all time).
This gps talk is cute, but how about we simply add an address that needs to be associated with the VOIP account when its opened but can be disabled by a user if they want, so the small minority of VOIP users that are moving it around can 'opt-out' of it while grandma has it in place for here vonage account her grandson set up for her at her home.
