The difficulties won't "derail" VOIP. The VOIPS will have to spend
some money maintaining the appropriate customer databases and then
develop a protocol to transmit that information 911 centers. That
requires some cost and effort, but it is not impossible as long as the
VOIP owners understand and accept their responsibility and liability
in this matter.
I suspect it will increase the cost of providing VOIP service and
raise fees a bit, but since the protocols and databases should be
standardized, the computer costs could be spread out among many VOIP
customers, so it won't be a big deal.
What I think a concern should be is service reliability. On the next
virus/worm attack when the Internet is flooded with messages and
intermediate switching/relay points can't keep up, it's possible VOIP
telephone service won't be available or be difficult to use. I don't
know how VOIP handles "traffic jams" where packets are delayed en
route. Also, if some business which is dependent on VOIP for its
voice has major server problems will voice traffic be disrupted?
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Lisa, since we are chatting about
'service reliability' and how important it is, what about when a place
like California has an earthquake now and then, or now and then in New
York City when an airplane crashes into a tall building and all the
people get excited and stirred up and all everyone jumps on the phone
at one time bringing the phone system to a screaming halt with all
the dialtone missing and the switching capacity totally used up? Or,
about every 14-15 years on average when a telco central office burns
down, and there is no phone service at all for a few weeks or months,
i.e. New York City, middle 1970's; Hinsdale (Chicago), Illinois in 1988.
Telco has been known to have its share of 'traffic jams' also, so my
question is, considering how many business places are dependent on
telco, how do they manage to get by when telco has an incident like
that? You know, I guess, that the events in NYC on 9-11-01 damn near
wrecked the central office serving lower Manhattan from the size and
fury of the 'traffic jam' as people found out what was happening. Do
we dare trust something like telco when reliability is important? PAT]
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com