Britain sets out emergency rules for VoIP service providers
LONDON, Dec. 7 -- British communications industries' regulator Ofcom has ruled that firms which route phone calls across the net (VoIP) must connect to emergency numbers 999 and 112.
999 or 112 is the European Union's universal emergency number for mobiles and fixed lines. Prior to the new rule net phone firms in Britain have not been required to connect to the emergency numbers.
The new stipulation is needed to ensure that during an emergency people can summon help as quickly as possible, Ofcom said Friday.
This ruling applies to those firms which let customers call normal national phone numbers but not receive them or let customers make and take calls from normal phone numbers. These firms have until September 2008 to comply with the ruling, the watchdog said.
Ofcom fears that having to find a phone that can call the emergency services during a crisis might make a serious situation much worse.
According to the ruling, excluded are services that only let their customers call other people on the same voip network or that only let customers receive calls from normal phone numbers.
Ofcom said that its research suggests few people know that net phone services -- voice over IP -- do not connect to 999 or 112.
In an Ofcom survey, 78 percent of those using net phone services which cannot connect to the emergency services thought that such a call was already possible on that network or were unaware that there might be a problem.
12/7/2007 12:06:27 PM
Category
News
Back