VoIP Providers Try to Deploy E911 Before FCC Enforcement Begins
By Kelly M. Teal
February 7, 2007

VoIP service providers in the United States are on notice that the FCC now is free to enforce the rules in its contested 2005 VoIP E911 order, following the outcome of a lawsuit against the ruling that came down in the agency’s favor. Two months after the appeals court’s decision, the FCC has yet to begin enforcing its order and won’t say when it will, leaving VoIP providers that have yet to fully meet the conditions scrambling to do so.

In addition, providers can’t expect relief from a proposed Senate bill, introduced Jan. 31, which is designed in part to speed VoIP E911 support by requiring incumbents to open their systems to VoIP operators. Should the bill pass, nothing in it prevents the FCC from enforcing its June 2005 order.

The FCC’s E911 order was contested based on the short timelines for compliance. The order required all interconnected VoIP carriers to supply enhanced 911 services – where all 911 calls are transmitted along with the caller’s location to an emergency call center or public safety answering point (PSAP) – in 120 days, or by Nov. 28, 2005. Nuvio Corp. took the lead in legally challenging the timeline, calling it “arbitrary and capricious,” especially since wireless carriers had years to meet the same obligations.

The case hung in limbo for most of 2006. The FCC held off any enforcement action as it awaited a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. That declaration came Dec. 15. The court said the 120-day timeframe was not unduly hard on providers. The plaintiffs – i2 Telecom International Inc., Nuvio Corp., Lightyear Network Solutions, Primus Telecommunications and Lingo Inc., a Primus subsidiary – lost the case.

Pending Congressional legislation that would have affected its compliance dates also kept the FCC at bay. That legislation never passed. Lack of a new law and the court’s decree mean the FCC can crack down on out-of-compliance companies as soon as it likes, even pulling licenses if it sees fit.

While many providers are well on their way or already compliant, others remain challenged – some, so much so that they are turning away from the U.S. market.

Lightyear, for one, faces “technical hurdles” beyond its control and is trying to manage the process, said spokesman Steve Rush. He could not elaborate on those obstacles. Lightyear was expanding its E911 footprint even as the industry waited for the decision from the appeals court, Rush said, and the company will keep working to conform. Lightyear expects to be fully compliant by early summer, Rush said.

i2 Telecom also encounters some troubles when it has to rely on its third-party E911 provider to increase geographic coverage. i2 will not enter new regions until it can ensure E911 coverage, said Paul Arena, chairman and CEO of the company. i2 Telecom can’t reveal the percentage of PSAP connections it has thanks to a confidentiality agreement with that partner. Still, although it has increased its coverage, i2 Telecom noted in a December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has only “partly met” the FCC’s requirements for E911 compliance

Nuvio Corp., another petitioner in the FCC case, did not return repeated calls for comment.

And, blaming 911 regulations, Primus Telecommunications’ VoIP subsidiary, Lingo, has curtailed its marketing in the United States. In its third-quarter 2006 earnings release, Primus said 45 percent of Lingo’s subscribers did not have E911 service and the company could be exposed to “significant liability” resulting from that non-compliance. The company had not, as of Wednesday, released its fourth-quarter report.

Meanwhile, the largest VoIP carriers – AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Vonage Holdings Corp. – now provide e911 to 95 percent of their consumers, according to the FCC. Many of the smaller guys – 8x8 Inc., GlobalTouch Telecom and others – have reached the standard set by the FCC, too. In fact, 8x8 has offered E911 since June 2004. GlobalTouch has provisioned E911 to the majority of its customers for a year; those who cannot get E911 do have access to regular 911 emergency calling.

The hardest part, said Cliff Rees, president and COO of GlobalTouch, and Bryan Martin, chairman and CEO of 8x8, was negotiating deals with the right entities. For GlobalTouch, those were third parties such as Intrado or TCS, which are service bureaus that hold the E911 interconnections to the RBOCs. Securing contracts and then programming the software in GlobalTouch’s system was tough, Rees said, noting the process was new to VoIP providers and the service bureaus.

8X8 encountered a different challenge when implementing E911. Even though 8x8 had contracted with TCS, many PSAPs would not accept the company’s traffic until 8x8 completed tests directly with the PSAP, Martin said. 8x8 continues to get letters, “everyday,” he said, requiring such tests, even though TCS is cleared with the endpoints in question. “We’re still doing this daily. I have a whole team that’s done nothing but 911 since 2005’s order.”

The recently proposed legislation introduced in the Senate would help alleviate that problem. The IP–Enabled Voice Communications and Public Safety Act would require owners of E911 infrastructure – usually incumbent phone carriers but sometimes states – to open their systems to VoIP providers. The FCC has not mandated this action. “The bill is to ensure there is a baseline of required service,” said Jake Ward, spokesman for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who is one of the bill’s sponsors. “Consumers have an expectation of emergency response service and we have an obligation to ensure that service exists.”

The bill has been accepted by the Senate Commerce Committee and awaits further action.