Can 911 be dialed on a digital (Internet) phone?
Posted on Mar 08, 2010 under Digital news and reports |I have a land line phone, but my ISP has talked me into going for digital phone service. Now I’ve heard that you can’t call 911 directly with a digital phone. Is this just an urban legend? If not, how can 911 be reached? Will a digital phone slow down my computer Internet connection?
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
It is a myth to some extent. In the United States and Canada, VoIP/digital phone services are required by law to provide you with 911 service. However the way in which 911 services work on a VoIP service is different to that of your traditional land-line service.
With VoIP services, you must register your 911 service address with the service provider when you sign-up with the service. You must keep this address updated as you move otherwise your 911 calls will be sent to the wrong call center and will have the wrong address on file.
When you call 911 on a VoIP line, the call is first routed to your VoIP provider. The VoIP provider then recognizes the 911 call and sends the call to an e911 service center. The e911 center has a large database with every VoIP number and the corresponding customer service address (which you have provided before hand). The e911 server piggy-backs your name/address on to the phone call and then routes the call once again, this time to the nearest PSAP emergency 911 call center for your town/city/state (based on the address you provided). The call finally reaches the 911 call center.
Not to worry, all that happens within a matter of 1-2 seconds or less, it’s not as if you have to wait on hold or something.
The problem with VoIP 911 services is there is a much higher chance something could go wrong when routing 911 calls and it’s possible the call may not go through. For this reason, you should never rely on your VoIP phone to make emergency calls, and you should always have a back-up communications device like a cell phone in case of an emergency.
Note that VoIP services rely on a stable active Internet connection as well as electrical power in order to work properly. If the Internet connection or power is disrupted, so is your phone service.
The digital phone service will have very minimal effect on Internet speed, and only while there is an active phone call.
Note: Some cable providers offer a digital phone service that uses an independent network that is not typically affected by your Internet connection. Some cable phone services also have battery backups to provide ~5 hrs of service in a power outage.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
First, check out for other internet telephony providers apart from the service that is being offered by your ISP. A little research can help you get a better and perhaps even less expensive service, with features that might be convenient for you (such as using the telephone number from anywhere in the world where you can access the internet, when you are travelling) Try searching for SIP telephony and Did numbers (there are many providers with unlimited local plans, unlimited North America plans, and what not) and you can ‘port’ or transfer your existing line, so that you can keep the same telephone number.
There are several pros and cons when choosing between a conventional line or a digital service.The emergency service (so well explained on the previous answer) used to be one of them but the enhanced 911 (e911) service is a good solution. It can help you to ask your doubts to your ISP (and other providers of internet telephony)
There are, indeed, urban legends about the 911 service, and there have also been real problems (like an ambulance dispatched to the wrong address of a mobile phone user who had moved to a different town) but in my opinion that would not be a major concern, unless you are moving frequently and hire a telephone line under the same name in different places.
A digital phone will usually not slow down your internet connection if it has, say, a capacity of 256 kbps or higher, although you can fine tune that by finding out the upstream and downstream capacity of your connection (it is better to make sure that both upstream and downstream are appropriate for digital telephony)
Regards,
Marc
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 am
First, any legitimate VOIP (digital / internet phone service) is going to provide a way to dial 911. And, it should be both full transparent and no slower or faster than dialing with a standard circuit switched phone. On your second point, phone use should be transparent as far as internet speed performance is concerned.
What usually happens is that when you sign up for a VOIP service, such as Vonage, for example, you must tell the service provider the local area in which you wish to receive 911 service. The provider will then program this into their network, along with your phone number and address information, thus ensuring that any 911 call that you make will be routed to the correct 911 centers, along with the correct ANI / ALI information (that is, ANI: automatic number identification and ALI: automatic location information). It is a simple process and it effectively ensures that any necessary 911 calls will go to the appropriate emergency call center and get there as fast as they would using any other phone.
As for whether your digital phone will have an effect on your internet connection speed, in theory it will but in practice it is unlikely to be noticed. Again using Vonage as an example: when you are talking on a VOIP phone connection you are using some of your internet bandwidth to complete the call. Typically, this is a fairly small percentage of your overall bandwidth capacity, still, you are using some bandwidth to send and receive voice packets that could otherwise be used to handle data packets. This is most often not at all noticeable, either to the voice user or the internet user. If you have only a marginal internet connection, on the other hand, you might notice more of an effect. Of course, if you have such a marginal bandwidth, you probably should not try to run an internet based phone along with your web services. Still, this really rarely shows up as a problem.