WASHINGTON (CN) - Emergency calls placed on Internet phones using the 711 system for the hearing and speech impaired probably won't uniformlygo throughfor another six months. So, the Federal Communications Commission is requiring Internet phone, or Voice Over Internet Protocol, service providers to remind its hearing and speech impaired customers to use 911 and text-to-text, TTY-to-TTY, in case of emergency until everything is worked out.
The reason for the delay is that the FCC will waive for six months the requirement that an Internet phone service provider routes emergency calls to the "appropriate relay center," if, despite its best efforts, the provider is unable to ensure that the calls go to local emergency call handling centers even when the customer's phone number does not match his or her locale. Despite the waiver, the FCC requires the service providers to patch throughany 711 emergency calls manually, until it works automatically. Click here for details and other new regulations.
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