Friday, May 06, 2005

FCC Martin Proposes VOIP 911

It's curious that the primarily ILEC owned cell services have yet to roll out E-911 - and cell service has been around a long time with large penetration. Yet VOIP (will 1100 providers), a relatively new service to the consumer with less than a 10% penetration rate, will be required to roll out E-911 by September. Vonage is going to spend $10M to set up E-911 and $1M a month to offer it - for just 500k users. That's $2 per user per month. In addition, the VOIP providers have to work with the ILECs to gain access to the service. A few problems with this: One, the FCC is viewing VOIP as POTS replacement, which it does not view cell service as. Two, the FCC is tying VOIP, the NextGen service, to TDM, the old system. Three, the FCC is giving ILECs exactly what they want again - control over a disruptive technology that would eat their lunch.

No comments: