In Washington, D.C., today, though, Vonage, a relatively tiny technology company that is the nation's leading Internet phone service provider, says it will announce that it has finally licked that problem.
That could boost adoption of VoIP among American consumers and here in Minnesota, where Vonage offers Internet phone service along with far bigger and more established phone companies like Qwest Communications International and AT&T, all without E-911 service so far.
It might also mollify state regulators, who had ordered Vonage last year to register as a phone company if it wanted to sell VoIP service here. A federal judge in Minneapolis said Vonage did not have to register because VoIP was an Internet information service, not a phone company.
"We've still got other issues, but public safety was a primary issue with us," said Diane Wells, telecommunications manager for the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
Jupiter Research, a technology trend watcher, this week predicted 400,000 U.S. households will use Internet phones by the end of this year and 12.1 million households or 10 percent of all American households will have VoIP by 2009.
"We think our sales will significantly increase in any market where we can offer full E-911 service. It's the reason we pushed so hard to get this done," Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron said. Vonage, based in Edison, N.J., has 300,000 customers worldwide, including several hundred in Minnesota.
Up to now, Vonage hasn't had E-911 either. Enhanced 911, as it is formally called, allows police and fire dispatchers to automatically see on computer monitors the address of a 911 call and a call-back number. It allows help to be sent quickly even if a person gets disconnected or cannot tell the operator what's wrong or where to go.
If a Vonage customer calls 911, the call gets routed to an administrative line at the nearest public safety agency instead of the 911 operator line.
But for the past three months, Vonage has been testing a new system in Rhode Island, and it can have all its 911 calls in the New England state appear on the 911 system with the correct address and call-back number, said Ray LaBelle, executive director of the Rhode Island 911 Emergency Telephone System.
LaBelle believes that it can be replicated in other states and that other phone companies can adjust their own budding Internet phone services to work the same way.
"We're confident it's a workable situation," he said. LaBelle is scheduled to appear at today's announcement along with Citron.
Citron said the new Vonage E-911 set-up works something like E-911 does for cell phones, which used to give 911 operations headaches because they could never tell where a call was coming from.
Vonage will require customers to register their home address and phone numbers on a Vonage Web page, and that will pass along the information to the correct 911 call center.
The system is an improvement over other E-911 systems for Internet phones that require the phones to stay rooted in the home, Citron said. Vonage allows people to have phones with area codes unconnected with their geographic location a St. Paul customer, for instance, could have a New York phone number so calls to New York would be local instead of long distance.
By packing along a small paperback book-sized adapter that links the phone to a high-speed Internet connection, traveling Vonage customers could bring their "home" phone with them. All they do is go to the Web and register their new address, Citron said.
There will be no additional cost to Vonage customers to have the E-911 service added, Citron said.
Vonage wants to install the new E-911 system in Minnesota, and Citron said Vonage is in discussions with the Metropolitan 911 Board, which administers 911 service in the Twin Cities area. So far, no tests are scheduled. Calls to the Metropolitan 911 Board were not returned Wednesday.
Denver-based Qwest has promised to expand its Internet phone service across it 14-state territory by the end of this year.
"The entire VoIP industry is tackling the 911 issue," Qwest said Wednesday.
