..and apparently this is happening more and more.
There was actually a story in USA Today a couple of
days ago where a family tried calling 911 on their
VoIP service during a burglary only to be told by
a recorded message that they must "dial 911 from
another phone"...
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-02-28-voip-usat_x.htm
This story accurately highlights some of the issues.
- ferg
There was actually a story in USA Today a couple of days ago where a
family tried calling 911 on their VoIP service during a burglary only
to be told by a recorded message that they must "dial 911 from
another phone"...
I was surprised to see on Packet8's web site that they now offer E911
in a lot of places. You have to have a local phone number and pay an
extra $1.50/mo. They remind you that if your power goes out, your
phone still won't work, but if you can call 911, it'll be a real 911
call.
This still has little to do with port blocking, but a lot to do with
the whole question of what level of service people are paying for vs.
what level they think they are paying for.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.
Perhaps it varies by state, but I thought part of the E-911 service
regulations was that if you were offering (charging) for it, you had to
offer it as "lifeline" service which meant it had to survive power outage.
*shrug*
I guess the original regs weren't written with these things in mind!
Scott
This does bring up a hardware design question...I'm wondering how difficult of an engineering/marketing problem it would be to design VoIP adapters with built-in backup batteries. How does the power consumption profile of a VoIP adapter compare to, say, a cellphone? What would this add to the cost of the device, and how long could the battery last?
-C
Replying to myself...
Yes, I am aware that a battery backup in the VoIP adapter doesn't do you much good if you don't have power on the cable/DSL modem and any intermediate gear - or your wireless phone, for that matter...
That said, this could be a feature that customers could be looking for as IP connectivity becomes more of a utility-like service.
-C
This does bring up a hardware design question...I'm wondering how
difficult of an engineering/marketing problem it would be to design
VoIP adapters with built-in backup batteries. How does the power
consumption profile of a VoIP adapter compare to, say, a cellphone?
What would this add to the cost of the device, and how long could the
battery last?
Funny you should ask. POTS phones used to contain their own batteries,
but in the mid-1890s they switched to the current system that powers the
phone from the central office because maintaining the batteries was a
logistical nightmare.
I realize that things have advanced a little in the past century, but my
UPS still needs new batteries every year. Since VoIP adapters have to
power POTS phones, their power needs are going to be those of POTS phones
rather than cell phones, and that means the battery has to provide enough
power to make the phone ring.
It's a fairly important part of the cableco system that their adapter with
the batteries is on the outside of the house so they can send guys around
to replace the batteries without the subscribers' help. I don't see how
it'd ever be practical to get users of parasitic VoIP to maintain their
batteries since they'd only notice that the batteries had failed when the
power was out.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Mayor
"I dropped the toothpaste", said Tom, crestfallenly.
Carry my VoIP traffic or else!!
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/70081/us-slaps-fine-on-company-blocking-voip.html
This does bring up a hardware design question...I'm wondering how difficult of an engineering/marketing problem it would be to design VoIP adapters with built-in backup batteries. How does the power consumption profile of a VoIP adapter compare to, say, a cellphone? What would this add to the cost of the device, and how long could the battery last?
I Like I suspect many people and any business I've ever encountered have an ups for my home router, switches, wireless accesspoints, and voip handset... if you have only a cordless phone you have approximately the same problem.
One just puts the whole system (dsl modem, router, voip adapter) on
a UPS. I do it; it works.
Jeffrey Race