[Asterisk-biz] Vonage bows to 911 pressure

[Paul]

Anonymous Account wrote:

>Slashdot is carrying the following article at:
>http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/05/05/2217236.shtml?tid=167&tid=215&tid=154&tid=109&tid=123
>
>-----
>No good technology goes unpunished by the inertia police. First it was
>the state of Texas that decided to sue Vonage over consumer
>impressions of its support of 911 service; now, as kamikaze-Tech
>writes "Luispr, a member of the Vonage VoIP Forum has posted a TMC.net
>article titled VoIP E911: Michigan Atty. General Says Vonage
>Misleads." That article notes Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox's
>announcement "that Internet-based telephone service provider Vonage
>Holdings Corporation will now face legal action for misleading
>consumers about the company's emergency 9-1-1 service."        
>
>Note that this is specifically about ads alleged to mislead customers
>about 911 capabilities, related to but distinct from the objection to
>VoIP that it doesn't in the first place provide the same location
>information to 911 operators that conventional telephone service does.
>See also this earlier story about the FCC pushing 911 requirements on
>VoIP providers.     
>-----
>
>  
>
Smaller providers can benefit from this in part by not misleading 
consumers. I really wish that some of these state attorney generals 
would go after the way the bigger providers shout "unlimited" but very 
softly whisper "not really" to get subscribers. That would only help 
smaller providers who want to offer a no-nonsense pay-for-play service. 
It's rather hard to do that when consumers believe they can get a 
$25/month voip account and then use 30k minutes per month. If that seems 
unrealistic, think of someone who has just moved with his spouse and 
teenagers to another state.

I think that they should also be required to disclose(and not in fine 
print) that they will be constantly monitoring calling patterns of 
so-called unlimited accounts since they are not really unlimited at all. 
It is an invasion of privacy and all consumers(residential or business) 
have a right to know in advance of it.