There’s a lot of kerfuffle around about the possibility of lots of US VoIP/PSTN hybrid users having service cut off. This because they haven’t provided positive acknowledgement of the limits of VoIP phones for emergency service, as per an FCC mandate.
But is this really so hard?
“Before we can connect you call, federal regulations require your acknowledgement of the following message.”
“Are you the subscriber? If yes, press 1, blah blah.”
“This telephone service has the following emergency service limitations… blah blah blah.”
“To acknowledge receipt of this message, at the tone please speak your name, and press the hash key. You will then be connected to the number you dialled.”
What could be better than using telephony technology to solve political schenanigans by the incumbents?
Or am I being hopelessly naive?
Posted by Martin Geddes at 12:34 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/549.
Maybe a large percentage of those unconfirmed accounts are held by people who don't use the service...and the VoIP players aren't willing to admit why there's been no response on those accounts, to date.
Posted by: at August 27, 2005 03:07 AMFrank, It can not be that for most of these service providers charge a monthly fee. I seriously doubt that such a large number of users will continue to pay a monthly fee for a service that they do not use.
Martin, since the affermative answer to the first question can not be really authenticated this scheme is prone for later dispute. Alternatively, a service provider can use this idea to keep nagging a non-confirming user to do so through a legally approved method. Take a look at http://www.mocaedu.com/mt/archives/000171.html
Posted by: at August 27, 2005 12:08 PMI agree that the technology itself should be used to handle this administrative task, although I can also see why the lack of user authentication would sink simple "If yes, press 1" options. The recording of your voice could be used for authentication, but it seems like an unneeded complication. How about an approach that would prompt you for your system username/password combination at the "To acknowledge receipt" stage, as your confirming pseudo-signature? The service provider would be getting more or less the same level of confirmation that they're getting now, that way.
For my part, I admit to setting aside notes from my VOIP provider on this subject until just recently. Chalk it up to my occasional tendency to put off small bookkeeping tasks until forced to do otherwise, I suppose....
Posted by: at August 30, 2005 11:29 PM