How reliable is the 911 service on VOIP phones?
Question by bathroomhog1990: How reliable is the 911 service on VOIP phones?
I have recently got rid of my Embarq phone service at home and have switched to ITP VOIP which is cheaper and better. However, I have read a lot about how 911 service doesn’t always work well with VOIP. Can anybody with a VOIP phone service (eg. Vonage/ITP/Lingo/etc.) who has attempted to call 911 on it before tell me if it actually worked or not?
Best answer:
Answer by Nunya B
Well, I’ve never called 911 from any phone, but I can tell you this much – VoIP providers do not provide E911 service. That means that if you do call 911 the operator will not see your address on their screen. If you are unable for some reason to speak they won’t know where you are.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
The thing is “VOIP” business is though the computer. It relies on the power. It also relies on the computer working properly. If you want the telephone to work for you when it has to work for you, why have this? It doesn’t make any sense. Additionally, I do not think it’s as good of a voice service or as reliable generally. It’s just another gimmick to get people computerized. It’s a cute way to weaken your telephone’s usefulness.
The whole idea with a telephone is as a separate function. When the power is off, your telephone still works 99% of the time. In my whole life, I’ve seen the telephone power cut off at the same time as the rest of it, once. That’s fairly rare. Treat your telephone as an appliance you simply don’t mess with like with extra power needs. At the very least have one like that plugged in all the time; I mean here a basic no frills phone.
D.J.
Phone Power provides 911 and 411 service.
http://voipcenter.onthewebs.com/
.
Most of the answers previously given are not completely true and depend on the type of VoIP service you have. Most legitimate VOIP phone service providers are required to have your location on file for 911 call purposes. They will even have a form or number you can call if you ever need to change the physical address location of your service.
Since a VoIP phone can be moved to any location it is important to know if you move your voip device, the address is hard coded to a specific location. In an emergency you may not be able to speak and therefor keeping your address on file is very important.
As for the comment about voip being unreliable… I have used voip for more than 8 years and love it. It is reliable and as long as I have power/internet it works. Most cordless phones with base stations etc. these days all require power and if you do not have it you are out of luck anyway even if you are using a landline from your local phone company.