Originally published December 3 2005
Senate Commerce Committee approves emergency 911 bill
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A Senate bill requiring internet telephone companies to provide location-specific 911 responses has been approved. The panel voted to extend the FCC deadline from Nov. 28 to four years from now.
The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation requiring Internet telephone companies to provide location-specific emergency 911 responses.
But the panel also voted to roll back a looming FCC deadline -- while granting firms four years to implement the technology.
Voice over Internet Protocol -- VoIP -- companies currently face a November deadline to provide "enhanced," or location-based, 911 response to customers.
The legislation, S. 1063, would waive that deadline and require revised FCC rules within 120 days of the bill's enactment.
The bill also grants Internet telephony providers a special waiver of E-911 rules for up to four years.
Under the text of the bill, the FCC "shall waive the 911 and E-911 requirements" if the VoIP provider meets a three-part test.
Subscribers would have to separately acknowledge receipt of such warnings, and the companies must demonstrate "that it is not technically or operationally feasible" to comply with the FCC rules.
Many VoIP providers criticized a May FCC order requiring nationwide compliance with E-911 services by Nov. 28.
The public safety sector already has immunity when they take such calls from landline or wireless carriers.
John Sununu, R-N.H., led the effort in the committee on behalf of VoIP providers concerned about the FCC order.
He pushed for a permanent exemption of the FCC order for those VoIP providers, such as Vonage, offering "nomadic" service.
The start of the committee session was delayed for more than 30 minutes as Stevens, Inouye, Sununu, Burns and their aides huddled at the dais and argued about how long a waiver authority should be granted.
The committee's action came a day after Nuvio, an Internet telephone provider, filed an emergency request in federal appeals court for a partial stay of the FCC order requiring E-911 service for VoIP customers by Nov. 28.
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