TMCnet News
Intrado's FCC E911 VoIP Solution Available to Wireless Service ProvidersBy TED GLANZER
TMCnet Communications and Broadband Columnist
The clock is ticking for VoIP service providers.
Indeed, there here are just two and a half months left for carriers to comply with the FCC's order that requires all VoIP providers to offer E9-1-1 capabilities to their subscribers by Nov. 28.
The order was issued in response to several highly publicized incidents in which interconnected VoIP users were not able to reach emergency operators. Toward that end, Intrado Inc. announced on Tuesday that its existing V9-1-1 Mobility Service is now available to wireless providers that offer wireless broadband VoIP service.
Instead of a softswitch, the "wireless VoIP provider's modem acts as the point of integration with Intrado's V9-1-1 Mobility Service," according to a company news release. Intrado provides routing instructions and connects the local 9-1-1 network to the wireless carrier through the modem.
"Our solution doesn't care if it's a softswitch or a broadband provider's modem; it works the same," Intrado spokesman Scott Fincher told TMCnet in an interview today.
The company did not release the price of the solution, though Fincher said that the cost was "no more than what wireless or wireline users are paying today."
Intrado has been at the forefront of developing VoIP E911 solutions for several years, and counts approximately 10 VoIP wholesalers and retailers as customers and/or partners, including heavy hitters such as Vonage and Verizon.
The company recently announced that it contracted with CommPartners to comply with the FCC's E911 order.
"We're in a good place [in the market]," Fincher said. "We're more or less dominating the third party VoIP solutions market today."
Although the FCC did not order providers to include a self-provisioning solution to address the nomadic aspect of VoIP technology, it still remains a bugaboo for the industry.
"The technology doesn't exist," Fincher said.
Intrado's V9-1-1 Mobility Service is user provisioned, meaning that the onus is on the subscriber to provide notice of his or her location.
"The linchpin is knowing where the device is," Fincher said, noting that GPS works great in an open field, but not so much in an enclosed building.
Fincher added that he believes that a "confluence" of technologies "to help that out."
-----
Ted Glanzer is assistant editor for TMCnet. For more articles by Ted Glanzer, please visit:
|