Is Emergency Calling VoIP and Hosted PBX’s Achilles’ Heel?
Location-related problems with remotely hosted communications technologies can be mitigated on mobile devices as these devices often have location services automatically enabled and as such as relatively easy to track. But emergency calls made from hosted PBX and/or VoIP fixed phones don’t tend to have location services enabled in their architecture. There is no easy way to trace a call made using a soft phone over cellular network, for example.
Is Regulatory Creep Inevitable for VoIP?
It’s clear that some level of regulation is necessary for the VoIP industry to ensure a certain standard for service quality. But excess regulation may lead to an unfortunate circumstance where the technology isn’t allowed to advance in any noticeable way and where the existing telecom giants retain all their incumbent power.
Information or Telecommunications? How Regulation Affects Hosted PBX and Law Enforcement
One of the growing pains that any innovative new technology goes through inevitably involves government regulation. Leaving PBX systems unregulated might work out well for new companies that want to start up, but it’s not good for their customers. So, to ensure that they are capable of complying with things like emergency services and law enforcement, things like VoIP and hosted PBX need to be appropriately classified, and acted on accordingly.
VoIP and 911: placing a call
Geographic portability of VoIP puts the burden of keeping track of the source location on the operator, not the service provider. Like it or not, but customer must take the responsibility to update the location information of the telephone as the VoIP providers will not be aware of the move.