[VoiceOps] 911 address policy for company phones at home

Fri Jan 18 15:51:03 EST 2013

I just wanted to point out one thing. The waiver I mentioned is NOT to avoid
providing 911 service for the customer as it sounds to be the case in
Vantage's situation. You MUST provide 911 service for the customer. The
waiver simply states that the 911 service is for the single location that
the phone was installed and while the phone might work if you move it
somewhere else, the 911 service will not! 

I would fully agree that relying on waivers is risky business - especially
when it comes to 911.  When McDonald's can be held liable for someone
spilling hot coffee on themselves when they stuck it between her legs, you
can most certainly be sued for not providing 911 service when the customer
moved their phone. My suggestion would be to sign up for the roaming ALI
database service so the customers can update their location information
whenever they move the phone and then program the phones so that every time
the phone is powered up, the customer has to update their location in the
ALI database.   That's really the safest way to operate!

I remember going on an interview years ago to a retail company (who is no
longer in business) and one of the questions they brought up was a problem
they were dealing with at the moment. They had two locations across the
freeway from each other and when someone called the 911 from one location,
the ambulance ended up showing up at the wrong building. Through a little
investigation we found out that regardless of which location someone dialed
911 from, the calls were all routed to one number in their PBX. That one
number happened to be associated with the main building so when 911 was
called, that's where the ambulance showed up. 

Mary Lou Carey

BackUP Telecom Consulting

marylou at backuptelecom.com 

Office: 615-791-9969 x 2001

From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org]
On Behalf Of Jon Radel
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 12:44 PM
To: voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] 911 address policy for company phones at home

Unless I'm missing something here, you're not proposing to sell service to a
stationary location and warning the customer that 911 will break if they
fail to notify you that they've moved the phone, but you're selling service
to stationary location A when the customer has already notified you that
they'll really be using the phone in stationary location B.  That really
doesn't sound like the same thing at all.  They've already told you that the
phone is going to be in location B and you're proposing to not handle 911
appropriately.  (My apologies if I've misunderstood the situation.)

Be warned that the FCC has clearly signaled that they don't find waivers
involving 911 the slightest bit amusing.  See
http://www.fcc.gov/document/vantage-communications for their side of our
story.  You might find the references to actual regulatory language useful.

I also find myself impelled to ask:  Are you actually pricing this in such a
way that there's a line item for 911 service with a dollar figure next to
it?  That's just inviting the customers to try haggle, and could be
construed that you consider 911 optional rather than a fundamental part of
your service.  Or is this all just a side-effect of charging for the DIDs in
the additional rate center(s) where the customer's employees live?

Bottom line, however, my advice is that you're treading into waters where
you *really* *really* want to talk to a competent lawyer with a specialty in
this arena and not take random advice on a mailing list.  Not even mine.
:-)  Getting this wrong could conceivably destroy your company.

At the very least, compare what the FCC is currently saying against what
Mary Lou is saying, some of which appears to be dangerously out of date.

--Jon Radel
jradel at vantage.com
267-756-1014

On 1/18/13 1:01 PM, Carlos Alvarez wrote:

Great answer, thanks.  This really covers what the customer is asking for,
which is basically the stationary option (all phones show one
CLID/ANI/location).  I will advise them that it's legal, just not advised,
and get a written signature for liability.

We do use a 911 service provider, we're not a CLEC.  We currently provide
the ability for a customer to have an address for each individual phone if
they choose.

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Mary Lou Carey <marylou at backuptelecom.com>
wrote:

Legally VOIP providers have the option to offer roaming VOIP services or
stationary VOIP services. If you offer roaming VOIP you are required to
provide your customers with a way to update their address information
whenever they move their phone. It can either be a website they log into to
change their address or a 24 hour phone number they call, but either way you
MUST provide it if you allow them to roam. If you do allow them to roam you
have to get your 911 service from a VOIP 911 provider (who has connections
to every PSAP in the country) or be connected to every PSAP in the country
yourself because a connection to the LEC network will only cover you for the
counties or parishes that you establish trunks for.     

Most VOIP providers I know sign up with a VOIP 911 provider because they
cover a large area so it's cheaper to do that then have a multitude of
connections through the LEC. If you decide to go with a stationary VOIP
product, you must have the customer sign a waiver stating that they are
aware that if they move their phone they will not receive 911 service. I
believe the FCC ruled in the last year or so that if you also have to place
some type of sticker on the phone so that the end user who uses the phone
knows 911 is not available when you move it rather than just the person who
ordered the phones. 

So the decision is not your customer's, but yours. If you choose to allow
the customer to move their phone then you either have to place a sticker on
the phone stating that 911 service will not be available to the customer OR
you have to provide the customer with a way to change their address
information when they do move the phone. While you could offer either option
to customers based on how much they wanted to pay, I would think liability
wise it would be better if you either offered it to everyone or no one at
all because it would be too easy for one of your employees to make a mistake
in setting someone up and not put them on the right plan.

Mary Lou Carey

BackUP Telecom Consulting

marylou at backuptelecom.com 

Office: 615-791-9969 x 2001 <tel:615-791-9969%20x%202001> 

From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org]
On Behalf Of Carlos Alvarez
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:51 AM
To: voiceops at voiceops.org
Subject: [VoiceOps] 911 address policy for company phones at home

We have a customer who wants us to block 911 on the phones that they give to
key employees to take home.  They don't want to pay fees for 911 service at
each home (which is stupid, since it's so cheap, but that's a digression).
I told them this is "illegal" but they asked to see the law, and I can't
actually find something that says so.  Yet that's the common knowledge
around the industry.  I do have the FCC documents that require an ITSP to
provide the service, but the customer contends it doesn't apply to this
specific case.

So two questions...

Does anyone here allow their customers to do this?

What is the best document to give the customer to support our position?

-- 

Carlos Alvarez

TelEvolve

602-889-3003

-- 

Carlos Alvarez

TelEvolve

602-889-3003

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