(OT) Fwd: My take on E911 and VoIP

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

With my brother's permission, I'm forwarding to the list his comments 
about my recent post.

My brother is a firefighter.

Bill

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: My take on E911 and VoIP
Date: 	Wed, 25 May 2005 16:44:53 -0400
From: 	MFF/RThomas D. Horne <hornetd.ta.mindspring.com>
To: 	Bill Horne <bill at horne.net>
References: 	<42947911.60702 at horne.net>



I would have to say that you nailed it. 

>From an Emergency Services perspective we are finally learning to think 
of ourselves as service providers as opposed to "government".  In this 
debate VOIP is also a service provider as are the ILECs (Incumbent Local 
Exchange Carriers). 

Our experience has taught us that the citizens (service consumers) all 
want the fire and rescue service to be located exactly one mile away 
from their home.  Since the service is provided by men and women who are 
deliberately selected to be physically oriented as well as inventive it 
is staffed with working class folks who are crude as a hog at times so 
no one wants us right next door.  

We are routinely loud, or at least noisy.  We produce smoke and other 
annoyances at random intervals.  We can be a pretty cocky bunch because 
we have gone where others will not go and come back to tell about it.  
Since we have lost good friends and colleagues looking through long 
snotty hallways for other people's children we have a very hard time 
rating the concerns about noise and other issues as worthy of our attention.  
Our routine experience of consumers is people who say we are too expensive, 
too loud, and generally annoying, but when they need help we should have 
been there yesterday.  

Our view of the public is badly distorted by exposure to the 
types of gadflies who attend budget hearings and attack us as lazy do 
nothings that should not be paid enough to raise their taxes under any 
circumstances. 

Now we get into this debate and some of the VOIP providers want to blame 
us for not staffing administrative telephone numbers around the clock 
thus giving them an inexpensive way out of the charges being leveled 
against them.  Those of you who are familiar with the technology are 
even more aware than we are of the qualitative difference between 911 
service and any ten digit telephone number but most of the public are 
not aware of those differences.  Add to this the fact that the VOIP 
providers are scared to death that they will be required to provide 911 
service at the first exchange rather than at their offices hundreds or 
thousands of miles away and you have us drawing and sharpening our 
public relations knives quite ready to leap down the throat of anyone 
who tries to shift the blame for the recent communications failures onto 
us.  

The best defense being a good offense there is a strong temptation 
to condemn VOIP providers as profiteers who are unwilling to bear their 
share of the cost of 911 service regardless of whether that is in fact 
true.  We have been working with the ILECs for a long time.  We have 
gotten used to them and they to us.  The VOIP folks are the new kids on 
the block so we are automatically on our guard for any hint of cost 
shifting in both the financial and public confidence areas. 

I would have written a more carefully composed version of this on the 
board but the means to answer your posting were not readily apparent to 
me. 
--
Master Fire Fighter / Rescuer Thomas D. Horne
Takoma Park Volunteer Fire Department a cooperating agency of the
Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service, Maryland, USA






-- 
E. William Horne
William Warren Consulting
http://william_warren.home.comcast.net
781 784-7287