Thursday, November 03, 2005

FCC E911 Directive put on hold by Senate

The IP-Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act of 2005, which was passed unanimously, sets new guidelines for the FCC and takes much of the edge off of the FCC’s recent policy. It requires the FCC to formulate new rules for VoIP E911 within 120 days, in effect erasing the FCC’s November 28 compliance deadline.The FCC had set a number of shifting deadlines for VoIP providers to receive E911 service acknowledgments from their customers. The FCC set a hard deadline of November 28 for overall compliance.
It's not quite a done deal yet, but it's over the hump and it will sure be a great boon to the VoIP industry if and when it does pass the full Senate, Congress and get the President's signature.
The penalty for the subscriber was disconnection, which seemed rather harsh, and may have prompted the committee to act. Some thought it was counterproductive to establish disconnection of consumers as a reasonable penalty.
The legislation, S. 1063, "waives the current November deadline and requires revised FCC rules within 120 days from the date the bill is enacted. Providers still have to warn subscribers that 911 and E-911 service is unavailable and receive confirmation from subscribers that this message is understood. The bill goes on to waive E-911 rules for up to four years if the service provider meets a specific set of tests."

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