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May 12, 2005
Cellphone Hangup: When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?
As More People Go Wireless, Patchwork of Call Centers Slows Locater
System
Upgrade Money Spent on Boots
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In November 1993, Jennifer Koon, under attack by a vicious assailant,
dialed 911 from her cellphone. But the dispatcher in upstate New York
could only listen helplessly for 20 minutes as the 18-year-old, unable
to give her exact location, was beaten, driven to an alley and shot to
death. The technology wasn't available to find her.
Almost 12 years later, more than half of the U.S. still lacks the
technology to find cellphone callers in distress. Though the federal
government is spending billions of dollars annually on homeland
security, the 911 system that Americans rely on to report an emergency
hasn't benefited.
With the explosive growth of wireless technology, more than a third of
the 190 million calls placed to 911 each year now come from cellphones.
Even as some of the nation's biggest cellular carriers face a December
deadline to upgrade their systems for 911 calls, many emergency-call
centers won't be able to receive the data. Virtually all of the
nation's 6,000 call centers can locate land-line phones, but only 41%
of them can locate cellphones, public-safety officials say. And the
situation is getting worse with the growing popularity of
Internet-based phone services -- some of which can't access traditional
911 service.
No federal agency has the authority to drive the local, state and
federal governments, as well as dozens of wireless and local-phone
companies, toward a solution. The cellular industry initially reacted
slowly because of costs and liability concerns. Public-safety officials
estimate it would take $8 billion and at least four more years to
modernize the nation's 911 system for wireless calls. And that doesn't
include the costs of updating the system to handle Internet phone
services.
Meanwhile, cash-strapped states have diverted funds earmarked for 911
to balance budgets and pay for unrelated items, including winter boots
and dry cleaning for the New York State Police. While Congress passed a
law last year to pay for some upgrades and stop the state raids on 911
money, President Bush, facing his own budget problems, has declined to
fund that initiative.
"These are front-burner challenges getting back-burner treatment," says
Michael Copps, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.
"The government itself is still working on developing a nationwide
plan. It just does not exist yet."
According to the latest information compiled by the National Emergency
Number Association, a nonprofit corporation focused on public-safety
communications issues, only six states, plus the District of Columbia,
have the technology in place to find 911 wireless callers from most
places in the state. Three more are close to completion. Sixteen
states, including New Jersey, Arizona and Ohio, have upgraded less than
10% of their counties, NENA says. Six of those states haven't finished
a single county.
Even within many states, coverage is uneven, with some counties and
cities receiving upgrades while neighboring ones haven't. A modernized
call center in the South Side of Chicago, for example, often helps
locate cellphone callers in nearby cities where emergency operators
lack the technology to do it themselves.
Big Shift
Part of the 911 problem is the result of a vast shift among consumers
away from traditional fixed-line phones toward new technologies. Older
phones are easy to find because they are plugged into the wall at a
specific address and aren't moveable. When a 911 call is made from that
number, the location automatically pops up on the computer screen in
front of the call-center operator who answers.
But consumers increasingly favor cellular and Internet services because
they offer cheaper rates and greater mobility -- the very thing that
makes callers difficult to find. About 6% of the nation's 182 million
cellphone users have gotten rid of their home phones, according to
industry analysts, who say the percentage will continue to rise.
Technology offers two ways to pinpoint wireless callers. Global
Positioning System satellites can be used to find the caller if
cellphones are equipped with a special chip, and the local 911 center
has been upgraded to receive specific latitude and longitude data.
That's the system being used by Verizon Wireless, Nextel Communications
Inc. and Sprint Corp. Two other major cellular companies, Cingular
Wireless and T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telecom AG, are using
triangulation -- measuring the distance of a signal from three
different cellphone towers -- to locate 911 callers.
But these technologies face challenges. Cellular providers using GPS
have to get their customers to buy a new phone equipped with a special
computer chip for their location system to work. In March, a man died
in a Long Island snowstorm after calling 911 from an older cellphone
that couldn't transmit his coordinates, even though the local call
center had satellite-locator technology. Triangulation has proved
problematic in rural areas, where towers, if there are any, are often
built in straight lines along highways. That makes it difficult to get
three separate measures to locate a 911 caller.
The FCC has set a year-end deadline for Verizon, Nextel and Sprint to
upgrade nearly all their customers to GPS-enabled phones. But even if
the companies persuade people with older phones to upgrade, no similar
deadline has been set for local and state governments to get their
equipment in place to handle such calls. And no federal agency has the
jurisdiction to set one.
Internet-phone services offer an entirely different host of problems.
These services allow consumers in, say, Boise, Idaho, to get a phone
number with a Boston area code, which raises questions about where a
911 call would be routed. Public-safety officials say new technology is
needed to locate the call center nearest the Internet modem making the
call, regardless of the phone number.
Some Internet phone services don't let users connect to 911 or they
route callers to nonemergency numbers. Earlier this year, a family in
Houston with Internet phone service couldn't alert police that two
armed robbers had forced their way into the family's home and shot both
parents in the legs. When their daughter called 911, she could only get
a recorded message to hang up and try a different phone.
Later this month, the FCC is expected to require Vonage Holdings Corp.,
the nation's biggest Internet phone provider, and others to provide a
direct connection to the 911 network, according to commission
officials.
To provide a similar level of 911 service as traditional phones, new
Internet protocols need to be written to allow the transmission of
location data in addition to the voice call. New switching equipment
and routers are also needed. The cost would be far less than the
wireless 911 upgrade. Several companies are offering middleman
solutions to allow Internet phone companies to connect to 911 networks,
and Verizon and SBC have said they'll begin offering some direct
connections to the 911 networks they run to companies like Vonage.
The difficulties involved in upgrading the system can partly be traced
to 911's origin in the late 1960s, when AT&T still ran most of the
country's phone service. In 1968, the company decided to make 911 a
nationwide emergency number. At that time, Los Angeles County had 50
different phone numbers to reach the police; St. Louis had 32 for
police and 57 for fire emergencies, according to the FCC.
Because rescue services fell under local, not federal, oversight,
officials in Washington left it to the cities to set up operator
centers to receive calls to the new number. It took until the late
1990s before 96% of the U.S. had 911 service, but some 200 counties
still don't. Calls to 911 are routed to the nearest emergency call
center. Wireless 911 calls generally get routed based on their location
when the call is made.
Crowded Scene
The breakup of Ma Bell made the picture even more complicated by
spawning dozens of cellular and local-phone companies, all with a role
to play in updating the 911 system. In 1996, the FCC called for
upgrading the nation's entire system within five years to make it able
to pinpoint cellphone callers to within about a 400-foot radius. But
regulators didn't tell individual cellular companies and local
officials how to accomplish this task, or pay for it. As a result, the
deadline wasn't met.
"The wireless carriers were saying, 'We can't do this, our industry is
in its infancy and these costs will stifle growth,' " said Anthony
Haynes, executive director of the Tennessee Emergency Communications
Board. Carriers also worried about liability issues if a 911 call was
lost. Congress indemnified them against this in 1999.
Local-phone companies have presented obstacles, too. Excluded from FCC
talks outlining the upgrades, some wanted to dictate the technology
used in the upgrades to make it compatible with the older systems they
already operated for wired phones. Others tried to profit from their
role as middlemen between the wireless providers and call centers.
In the greater Kansas City, Mo., area, for example, obtaining wireless
911 service from SBC Communications Inc., which provided regular 911
connections, would have cost an additional $2.5 million a year, says
Greg Ballentine, the director of public safety there and president of
the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. So officials
opted to buy and manage their own system. An SBC spokesman said the
company never made an official proposal for such service.
Even when money has been earmarked for modernizing 911, it often has
been used for other purposes. This has been true of funds generated by
special fees for upgrading 911 that dozens of states have tacked onto
consumers' monthly phone bills.
New York has diverted more of these funds than any other state. It has
assessed a fee on monthly phone bills for 911 upgrades since 1991,
longer than most states, and has the biggest charge, up to $1.50. But
in a March 2002 report, the state comptroller found that the New York
State Police in 2001 spent money intended for 911 upgrades on items
such as $4.66 million for vehicle leases and purchases, $1.2 million
for maintenance of radio systems, $19,187 for winter boots and more
than $500 for dry cleaning. State officials said all of the expenses
were related to the state police's "public-safety mission," according
to a response to the report.
During a training exercise in 2003, Rochester public-safety officials
determined police and fire units had responded ably to a simulated gas
attack by terrorists at a park concert. According to the drill's
script, the attack had been reported to authorities by a citizen with a
cellphone.
"What if the person calling was overcome by gas before he could tell
them where he is?" asked David Koon, a New York state lawmaker, when
briefed on the drill. Mr. Koon, the father of Jennifer, ran for office
as an advocate of 911 reform after his daughter's death. (Her killer
was eventually caught and sentenced to 37½ years to life in prison.)
City officials conceded the call center wouldn't have been able to
locate the caller because it lacked the proper technology. Rochester
has since upgraded its 911 system.
New York City's 911 problems came under scrutiny in January 2003, when
four boys drowned after calling 911 from a sinking rowboat. Rescuers
didn't start looking until 14 hours later because they couldn't
pinpoint the location of the late-night call. New York City upgraded
its 911 system to receive wireless location information last August.
After nearly two years of wrangling, Congress in December 2004 approved
the creation of a national oversight office to spearhead 911 upgrades
and $250 million a year in federal grants to reward states that don't
divert 911 funds to other purposes. At a conference in early March,
officials from the Transportation and Commerce departments, which would
have jointly run the new central office, said federal belt-tightening
made it unlikely that the new funds or new office would materialize
anytime soon.
"We're stuck with what we've got," William Belote, chief of the
Commerce Department's Emergency Planning and Public Safety Division,
told the conference, noting there was only so much he could do with his
current five-person staff. The budget deficit, he said, makes it "very,
very challenging to get any additional money for the federal grant
program."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
May 12, 2005
Internet Calling's Downside: Failing to Link Callers to 911
Low-Cost Services Gain Popularity, But Regulators Have Concerns;
Routed to Recorded Message
By SHAWN YOUNG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
When Cheryl Waller's seemingly healthy 3½-month-old daughter, Julia,
suddenly stopped breathing in March, she immediately grabbed the phone
and dialed 911. She repeatedly got a recording that began by saying,
"If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911."
In a panic, Ms. Waller raced to a neighbor who called 911. But Julia
was dead by the time help arrived.
Ms. Waller, who lives in Deltona, Fla., with her husband and four other
children, didn't get through to 911 because she was receiving her phone
service from Vonage Holdings Corp., an Internet-based phone company
that doesn't connect to 911 the way that most people have come to
expect. "I think we lost our daughter because of this," says Ms.
Waller, who says doctors attributed her daughter's death to sudden
infant death syndrome.
A Vonage spokeswoman says: "Our hearts go out to the Waller family. We
are going to do everything possible to prevent this from happening
again."
Long a security blanket for callers, connecting with 911 service has
become an issue with the advent of new technologies. Emergency
operators, for example, don't always automatically know where a person
is calling from when he or she dials 911 on a cellphone. But the 911
problem is particularly acute with some Internet-based phone service.
Not only is it often difficult for operators to pinpoint where someone
is calling from, but in some cases they never even reach a real 911
operator. That is because calls from some Internet-based phone services
are relegated to what is essentially a second-class status compared
with normal 911.
Calls from these services sometimes ring at general or administrative
numbers at emergency-call centers instead of connecting directly to 911
operators. In some places, those general numbers aren't staffed after
normal business hours. Even when the calls are answered, the person on
the other end may not be a trained emergency operator and can't see the
caller's address automatically.
Ms. Waller wound up at one of those non-emergency phone numbers.
Regulators are growing increasingly concerned about the 911 problem.
Attorneys general in Texas and Connecticut, where consumers also were
unable to reach 911 in life-threatening emergencies, are now suing
Vonage for deceptive advertising. They charge that Vonage -- the
nation's largest Internet calling company with more than 650,000
customers -- doesn't properly alert customers to the shortcomings of
its 911 service.
The problem is also on the Federal Communications Commission's radar
screen. As early as next week, the FCC could announce that it will
require Internet-based phone companies like AT&T Corp'.s CallVantage
and Verizon Communications Inc.'s Voicewing to offer full 911 service.
The logistics of doing that are more complicated for some carriers than
others. AT&T, for instance, also offers conventional service and can
take advantage of its existing facilities in some areas. For all the
affected companies, the process could take time and money.
Lured by prices as low as $14.99 a month for 500 minutes of local and
long-distance calling, more than a million people have replaced their
conventional phones with Internet-based service -- and millions more
are expected to follow in coming years, analysts say. But as Internet
calling takes off, many consumers aren't fully aware of the 911 problem
-- and don't know that among the various Internet-calling services,
there are some big differences. For example, cable companies, some of
which also offer Internet-based calling, don't have the same problems
with 911. That is because the customer's phone number is linked to an
actual address. (As with all Internet-based calling, however, the
service won't work if the power goes out or if the user's Internet
connection is down.)
Permanent solutions to the problem are complicated for technological
and regulatory reasons. Vonage says part of the problem with connecting
its service to 911 is that in many areas the regional Bell companies
control the systems that connect calls to 911, and the Bells have been
reluctant to grant Vonage access to the system. For their part, the
Bells have expressed concerns about keeping the 911 system safe from
hackers. Some industry observers say the disputes largely reflect
differences over the terms of connecting.
Because of recent problems, Vonage is spending millions of dollars to
set up a program, similar to the OnStar system available on General
Motors Corp. vehicles, that would offer emergency callers a live
response. Callers who aren't connected properly with 911 would reach a
rep who would take information and immediately summon help.
"No failure of 911 is ever acceptable," says Jeffrey Citron, Chairman
and CEO of Vonage. He says the company has handled more than 100,000
emergency calls without incident, but "we have a handful of situations
where things didn't go as expected."
Unlike traditional phones, where a wire is plugged into the wall at a
specific address, calls routed over the Internet aren't fixed to a
location. To further complicate matters, some Internet phone providers
let customers choose any area code, and take their numbers with them if
they move or travel. As a result, someone with a Chicago area code, for
example, could actually be calling 911 from Los Angeles.
To get 911 service from some Internet-calling services, customers have
to register their address, on top of the normal signup process. But
even some customers who take that extra step -- as Ms. Waller did --
are surprised to find that their emergency calls are relegated to
second-class status.
Like Ms. Waller, Andrea McClanaghan, of Torrington, Conn., also a
Vonage customer, got a recording when her nine-month-old son, Owen, who
had been ill with a stomach virus, had a seizure.
"He stopped breathing and we couldn't get help for him," says Ms.
McClanaghan, whose son has recovered. "I was hysterical."
They didn't realize that even though they had registered for 911, their
calls to 911 centers could still go unanswered by a human.
New York City has objected strenuously to the practice of sending calls
to general administrative numbers instead of a 911 operator. In a
letter to the FCC last month, city officials said the local 911 system
handles about 30,000 calls a day.
The letter, from the head of the city's department of information
technology and telecommunications, said Vonage and several other
Internet-based companies are, without permission, sending emergency
calls to "a single phone sitting on an administrative desk. The only
relationship of this phone to the city's 911 system is that the desk
happens to be located in the same building where the city's main 911
call center is also located. This phone isn't equipped to serve an
emergency response or public safety function."
Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schultz said the company has asked repeatedly
for an alternative but got nowhere until recently.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says his office has
gotten 10 to 20 complaints about emergency calls with Internet phone
services. Vonage, he says, buries details about 911 deep down in a very
long "user agreement" that few people take the time to read. "The
disclosures are incomplete and incomprehensible," says Mr. Blumenthal.
Vonage says it is addressing those concerns. "We think our disclosures
are good," says Ms. Schultz, "but we're willing to work with the
attorneys general."
Ms. McClanaghan and Ms. Waller say Vonage customer-service reps were
dismissive when they called to ask why they hadn't been able to reach
911.
In a letter to Florida's Attorney General, Ms. Waller said the Vonage
customer-service representative laughed when she told her that Julia
had died. "She laughed and stated that they were unable to revive a
baby," Ms. Waller says it took the company 11 days to get back to her.
Ms. McClanaghan said it took at least four for her to hear back.
"We've taken corrective action," said Mr. Citron, Vonage's CEO. He said
the company has established a special team to handle customer service
calls related to 911. She said customer-service representatives were
struggling in an unfamiliar situation.
Vonage and other Internet-based carriers say they are working on
solutions that give customers full emergency service. AT&T says it
plans to have full 911 service for about 70% of its Internet calling
customers by the end of the year.
911 HITCHES
Problems that can occur with some Internet-calling services:
Customers forget to register their addresses -- or don't update them
when they move
Customers call 911 but get routed to numbers that may not be answered
by live operators, particularly after hours.
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR 911 CALL
A look at how the system works using various phone options
TYPE / DESCRIPTION / COMMENT
Traditional Phone / Phone line is linked to a fixed location and call
is connected directly to live emergency operators who automatically see
the caller 's location on a computer screen. / Extremely reliable
Cellphone / Calls to 911 are traced by satellites or other technology.
/ Problems can arise from dropped calls, imprecise location information
and antiquated 911 answering centers.
Internet Calling From Cable Companies / Generally works the same way as
traditional service because the number is linked to a fixed address and
agreements are in place for connecting directly to the 911 system. /
Extremely reliable
Calling From Internet-based Carriers / Caller registers an address
(usually their home address), and a database routes the call to the
emergency center nearest the address. / Even some callers who register
their addresses can have calls sent to non-emergency numbers at 911
centers.
May 12, 2005
Cellphone Hangup: When You Dial 911, Can Help Find You?
As More People Go Wireless, Patchwork of Call Centers Slows Locater
System
Upgrade Money Spent on Boots
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In November 1993, Jennifer Koon, under attack by a vicious assailant,
dialed 911 from her cellphone. But the dispatcher in upstate New York
could only listen helplessly for 20 minutes as the 18-year-old, unable
to give her exact location, was beaten, driven to an alley and shot to
death. The technology wasn't available to find her.
Almost 12 years later, more than half of the U.S. still lacks the
technology to find cellphone callers in distress. Though the federal
government is spending billions of dollars annually on homeland
security, the 911 system that Americans rely on to report an emergency
hasn't benefited.
With the explosive growth of wireless technology, more than a third of
the 190 million calls placed to 911 each year now come from cellphones.
Even as some of the nation's biggest cellular carriers face a December
deadline to upgrade their systems for 911 calls, many emergency-call
centers won't be able to receive the data. Virtually all of the
nation's 6,000 call centers can locate land-line phones, but only 41%
of them can locate cellphones, public-safety officials say. And the
situation is getting worse with the growing popularity of
Internet-based phone services -- some of which can't access traditional
911 service.
No federal agency has the authority to drive the local, state and
federal governments, as well as dozens of wireless and local-phone
companies, toward a solution. The cellular industry initially reacted
slowly because of costs and liability concerns. Public-safety officials
estimate it would take $8 billion and at least four more years to
modernize the nation's 911 system for wireless calls. And that doesn't
include the costs of updating the system to handle Internet phone
services.
Meanwhile, cash-strapped states have diverted funds earmarked for 911
to balance budgets and pay for unrelated items, including winter boots
and dry cleaning for the New York State Police. While Congress passed a
law last year to pay for some upgrades and stop the state raids on 911
money, President Bush, facing his own budget problems, has declined to
fund that initiative.
"These are front-burner challenges getting back-burner treatment," says
Michael Copps, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.
"The government itself is still working on developing a nationwide
plan. It just does not exist yet."
According to the latest information compiled by the National Emergency
Number Association, a nonprofit corporation focused on public-safety
communications issues, only six states, plus the District of Columbia,
have the technology in place to find 911 wireless callers from most
places in the state. Three more are close to completion. Sixteen
states, including New Jersey, Arizona and Ohio, have upgraded less than
10% of their counties, NENA says. Six of those states haven't finished
a single county.
Even within many states, coverage is uneven, with some counties and
cities receiving upgrades while neighboring ones haven't. A modernized
call center in the South Side of Chicago, for example, often helps
locate cellphone callers in nearby cities where emergency operators
lack the technology to do it themselves.
Big Shift
Part of the 911 problem is the result of a vast shift among consumers
away from traditional fixed-line phones toward new technologies. Older
phones are easy to find because they are plugged into the wall at a
specific address and aren't moveable. When a 911 call is made from that
number, the location automatically pops up on the computer screen in
front of the call-center operator who answers.
But consumers increasingly favor cellular and Internet services because
they offer cheaper rates and greater mobility -- the very thing that
makes callers difficult to find. About 6% of the nation's 182 million
cellphone users have gotten rid of their home phones, according to
industry analysts, who say the percentage will continue to rise.
Technology offers two ways to pinpoint wireless callers. Global
Positioning System satellites can be used to find the caller if
cellphones are equipped with a special chip, and the local 911 center
has been upgraded to receive specific latitude and longitude data.
That's the system being used by Verizon Wireless, Nextel Communications
Inc. and Sprint Corp. Two other major cellular companies, Cingular
Wireless and T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telecom AG, are using
triangulation -- measuring the distance of a signal from three
different cellphone towers -- to locate 911 callers.
But these technologies face challenges. Cellular providers using GPS
have to get their customers to buy a new phone equipped with a special
computer chip for their location system to work. In March, a man died
in a Long Island snowstorm after calling 911 from an older cellphone
that couldn't transmit his coordinates, even though the local call
center had satellite-locator technology. Triangulation has proved
problematic in rural areas, where towers, if there are any, are often
built in straight lines along highways. That makes it difficult to get
three separate measures to locate a 911 caller.
The FCC has set a year-end deadline for Verizon, Nextel and Sprint to
upgrade nearly all their customers to GPS-enabled phones. But even if
the companies persuade people with older phones to upgrade, no similar
deadline has been set for local and state governments to get their
equipment in place to handle such calls. And no federal agency has the
jurisdiction to set one.
Internet-phone services offer an entirely different host of problems.
These services allow consumers in, say, Boise, Idaho, to get a phone
number with a Boston area code, which raises questions about where a
911 call would be routed. Public-safety officials say new technology is
needed to locate the call center nearest the Internet modem making the
call, regardless of the phone number.
Some Internet phone services don't let users connect to 911 or they
route callers to nonemergency numbers. Earlier this year, a family in
Houston with Internet phone service couldn't alert police that two
armed robbers had forced their way into the family's home and shot both
parents in the legs. When their daughter called 911, she could only get
a recorded message to hang up and try a different phone.
Later this month, the FCC is expected to require Vonage Holdings Corp.,
the nation's biggest Internet phone provider, and others to provide a
direct connection to the 911 network, according to commission
officials.
To provide a similar level of 911 service as traditional phones, new
Internet protocols need to be written to allow the transmission of
location data in addition to the voice call. New switching equipment
and routers are also needed. The cost would be far less than the
wireless 911 upgrade. Several companies are offering middleman
solutions to allow Internet phone companies to connect to 911 networks,
and Verizon and SBC have said they'll begin offering some direct
connections to the 911 networks they run to companies like Vonage.
The difficulties involved in upgrading the system can partly be traced
to 911's origin in the late 1960s, when AT&T still ran most of the
country's phone service. In 1968, the company decided to make 911 a
nationwide emergency number. At that time, Los Angeles County had 50
different phone numbers to reach the police; St. Louis had 32 for
police and 57 for fire emergencies, according to the FCC.
Because rescue services fell under local, not federal, oversight,
officials in Washington left it to the cities to set up operator
centers to receive calls to the new number. It took until the late
1990s before 96% of the U.S. had 911 service, but some 200 counties
still don't. Calls to 911 are routed to the nearest emergency call
center. Wireless 911 calls generally get routed based on their location
when the call is made.
Crowded Scene
The breakup of Ma Bell made the picture even more complicated by
spawning dozens of cellular and local-phone companies, all with a role
to play in updating the 911 system. In 1996, the FCC called for
upgrading the nation's entire system within five years to make it able
to pinpoint cellphone callers to within about a 400-foot radius. But
regulators didn't tell individual cellular companies and local
officials how to accomplish this task, or pay for it. As a result, the
deadline wasn't met.
"The wireless carriers were saying, 'We can't do this, our industry is
in its infancy and these costs will stifle growth,' " said Anthony
Haynes, executive director of the Tennessee Emergency Communications
Board. Carriers also worried about liability issues if a 911 call was
lost. Congress indemnified them against this in 1999.
Local-phone companies have presented obstacles, too. Excluded from FCC
talks outlining the upgrades, some wanted to dictate the technology
used in the upgrades to make it compatible with the older systems they
already operated for wired phones. Others tried to profit from their
role as middlemen between the wireless providers and call centers.
In the greater Kansas City, Mo., area, for example, obtaining wireless
911 service from SBC Communications Inc., which provided regular 911
connections, would have cost an additional $2.5 million a year, says
Greg Ballentine, the director of public safety there and president of
the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. So officials
opted to buy and manage their own system. An SBC spokesman said the
company never made an official proposal for such service.
Even when money has been earmarked for modernizing 911, it often has
been used for other purposes. This has been true of funds generated by
special fees for upgrading 911 that dozens of states have tacked onto
consumers' monthly phone bills.
New York has diverted more of these funds than any other state. It has
assessed a fee on monthly phone bills for 911 upgrades since 1991,
longer than most states, and has the biggest charge, up to $1.50. But
in a March 2002 report, the state comptroller found that the New York
State Police in 2001 spent money intended for 911 upgrades on items
such as $4.66 million for vehicle leases and purchases, $1.2 million
for maintenance of radio systems, $19,187 for winter boots and more
than $500 for dry cleaning. State officials said all of the expenses
were related to the state police's "public-safety mission," according
to a response to the report.
During a training exercise in 2003, Rochester public-safety officials
determined police and fire units had responded ably to a simulated gas
attack by terrorists at a park concert. According to the drill's
script, the attack had been reported to authorities by a citizen with a
cellphone.
"What if the person calling was overcome by gas before he could tell
them where he is?" asked David Koon, a New York state lawmaker, when
briefed on the drill. Mr. Koon, the father of Jennifer, ran for office
as an advocate of 911 reform after his daughter's death. (Her killer
was eventually caught and sentenced to 37½ years to life in prison.)
City officials conceded the call center wouldn't have been able to
locate the caller because it lacked the proper technology. Rochester
has since upgraded its 911 system.
New York City's 911 problems came under scrutiny in January 2003, when
four boys drowned after calling 911 from a sinking rowboat. Rescuers
didn't start looking until 14 hours later because they couldn't
pinpoint the location of the late-night call. New York City upgraded
its 911 system to receive wireless location information last August.
After nearly two years of wrangling, Congress in December 2004 approved
the creation of a national oversight office to spearhead 911 upgrades
and $250 million a year in federal grants to reward states that don't
divert 911 funds to other purposes. At a conference in early March,
officials from the Transportation and Commerce departments, which would
have jointly run the new central office, said federal belt-tightening
made it unlikely that the new funds or new office would materialize
anytime soon.
"We're stuck with what we've got," William Belote, chief of the
Commerce Department's Emergency Planning and Public Safety Division,
told the conference, noting there was only so much he could do with his
current five-person staff. The budget deficit, he said, makes it "very,
very challenging to get any additional money for the federal grant
program."
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May 12, 2005
Internet Calling's Downside: Failing to Link Callers to 911
Low-Cost Services Gain Popularity, But Regulators Have Concerns;
Routed to Recorded Message
By SHAWN YOUNG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
When Cheryl Waller's seemingly healthy 3½-month-old daughter, Julia,
suddenly stopped breathing in March, she immediately grabbed the phone
and dialed 911. She repeatedly got a recording that began by saying,
"If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911."
In a panic, Ms. Waller raced to a neighbor who called 911. But Julia
was dead by the time help arrived.
Ms. Waller, who lives in Deltona, Fla., with her husband and four other
children, didn't get through to 911 because she was receiving her phone
service from Vonage Holdings Corp., an Internet-based phone company
that doesn't connect to 911 the way that most people have come to
expect. "I think we lost our daughter because of this," says Ms.
Waller, who says doctors attributed her daughter's death to sudden
infant death syndrome.
A Vonage spokeswoman says: "Our hearts go out to the Waller family. We
are going to do everything possible to prevent this from happening
again."
Long a security blanket for callers, connecting with 911 service has
become an issue with the advent of new technologies. Emergency
operators, for example, don't always automatically know where a person
is calling from when he or she dials 911 on a cellphone. But the 911
problem is particularly acute with some Internet-based phone service.
Not only is it often difficult for operators to pinpoint where someone
is calling from, but in some cases they never even reach a real 911
operator. That is because calls from some Internet-based phone services
are relegated to what is essentially a second-class status compared
with normal 911.
Calls from these services sometimes ring at general or administrative
numbers at emergency-call centers instead of connecting directly to 911
operators. In some places, those general numbers aren't staffed after
normal business hours. Even when the calls are answered, the person on
the other end may not be a trained emergency operator and can't see the
caller's address automatically.
Ms. Waller wound up at one of those non-emergency phone numbers.
Regulators are growing increasingly concerned about the 911 problem.
Attorneys general in Texas and Connecticut, where consumers also were
unable to reach 911 in life-threatening emergencies, are now suing
Vonage for deceptive advertising. They charge that Vonage -- the
nation's largest Internet calling company with more than 650,000
customers -- doesn't properly alert customers to the shortcomings of
its 911 service.
The problem is also on the Federal Communications Commission's radar
screen. As early as next week, the FCC could announce that it will
require Internet-based phone companies like AT&T Corp'.s CallVantage
and Verizon Communications Inc.'s Voicewing to offer full 911 service.
The logistics of doing that are more complicated for some carriers than
others. AT&T, for instance, also offers conventional service and can
take advantage of its existing facilities in some areas. For all the
affected companies, the process could take time and money.
Lured by prices as low as $14.99 a month for 500 minutes of local and
long-distance calling, more than a million people have replaced their
conventional phones with Internet-based service -- and millions more
are expected to follow in coming years, analysts say. But as Internet
calling takes off, many consumers aren't fully aware of the 911 problem
-- and don't know that among the various Internet-calling services,
there are some big differences. For example, cable companies, some of
which also offer Internet-based calling, don't have the same problems
with 911. That is because the customer's phone number is linked to an
actual address. (As with all Internet-based calling, however, the
service won't work if the power goes out or if the user's Internet
connection is down.)
Permanent solutions to the problem are complicated for technological
and regulatory reasons. Vonage says part of the problem with connecting
its service to 911 is that in many areas the regional Bell companies
control the systems that connect calls to 911, and the Bells have been
reluctant to grant Vonage access to the system. For their part, the
Bells have expressed concerns about keeping the 911 system safe from
hackers. Some industry observers say the disputes largely reflect
differences over the terms of connecting.
Because of recent problems, Vonage is spending millions of dollars to
set up a program, similar to the OnStar system available on General
Motors Corp. vehicles, that would offer emergency callers a live
response. Callers who aren't connected properly with 911 would reach a
rep who would take information and immediately summon help.
"No failure of 911 is ever acceptable," says Jeffrey Citron, Chairman
and CEO of Vonage. He says the company has handled more than 100,000
emergency calls without incident, but "we have a handful of situations
where things didn't go as expected."
Unlike traditional phones, where a wire is plugged into the wall at a
specific address, calls routed over the Internet aren't fixed to a
location. To further complicate matters, some Internet phone providers
let customers choose any area code, and take their numbers with them if
they move or travel. As a result, someone with a Chicago area code, for
example, could actually be calling 911 from Los Angeles.
To get 911 service from some Internet-calling services, customers have
to register their address, on top of the normal signup process. But
even some customers who take that extra step -- as Ms. Waller did --
are surprised to find that their emergency calls are relegated to
second-class status.
Like Ms. Waller, Andrea McClanaghan, of Torrington, Conn., also a
Vonage customer, got a recording when her nine-month-old son, Owen, who
had been ill with a stomach virus, had a seizure.
"He stopped breathing and we couldn't get help for him," says Ms.
McClanaghan, whose son has recovered. "I was hysterical."
They didn't realize that even though they had registered for 911, their
calls to 911 centers could still go unanswered by a human.
New York City has objected strenuously to the practice of sending calls
to general administrative numbers instead of a 911 operator. In a
letter to the FCC last month, city officials said the local 911 system
handles about 30,000 calls a day.
The letter, from the head of the city's department of information
technology and telecommunications, said Vonage and several other
Internet-based companies are, without permission, sending emergency
calls to "a single phone sitting on an administrative desk. The only
relationship of this phone to the city's 911 system is that the desk
happens to be located in the same building where the city's main 911
call center is also located. This phone isn't equipped to serve an
emergency response or public safety function."
Vonage spokeswoman Brooke Schultz said the company has asked repeatedly
for an alternative but got nowhere until recently.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says his office has
gotten 10 to 20 complaints about emergency calls with Internet phone
services. Vonage, he says, buries details about 911 deep down in a very
long "user agreement" that few people take the time to read. "The
disclosures are incomplete and incomprehensible," says Mr. Blumenthal.
Vonage says it is addressing those concerns. "We think our disclosures
are good," says Ms. Schultz, "but we're willing to work with the
attorneys general."
Ms. McClanaghan and Ms. Waller say Vonage customer-service reps were
dismissive when they called to ask why they hadn't been able to reach
911.
In a letter to Florida's Attorney General, Ms. Waller said the Vonage
customer-service representative laughed when she told her that Julia
had died. "She laughed and stated that they were unable to revive a
baby," Ms. Waller says it took the company 11 days to get back to her.
Ms. McClanaghan said it took at least four for her to hear back.
"We've taken corrective action," said Mr. Citron, Vonage's CEO. He said
the company has established a special team to handle customer service
calls related to 911. She said customer-service representatives were
struggling in an unfamiliar situation.
Vonage and other Internet-based carriers say they are working on
solutions that give customers full emergency service. AT&T says it
plans to have full 911 service for about 70% of its Internet calling
customers by the end of the year.
911 HITCHES
Problems that can occur with some Internet-calling services:
Customers forget to register their addresses -- or don't update them
when they move
Customers call 911 but get routed to numbers that may not be answered
by live operators, particularly after hours.
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR 911 CALL
A look at how the system works using various phone options
TYPE / DESCRIPTION / COMMENT
Traditional Phone / Phone line is linked to a fixed location and call
is connected directly to live emergency operators who automatically see
the caller 's location on a computer screen. / Extremely reliable
Cellphone / Calls to 911 are traced by satellites or other technology.
/ Problems can arise from dropped calls, imprecise location information
and antiquated 911 answering centers.
Internet Calling From Cable Companies / Generally works the same way as
traditional service because the number is linked to a fixed address and
agreements are in place for connecting directly to the 911 system. /
Extremely reliable
Calling From Internet-based Carriers / Caller registers an address
(usually their home address), and a database routes the call to the
emergency center nearest the address. / Even some callers who register
their addresses can have calls sent to non-emergency numbers at 911
centers.
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