VoIP & 911

Interesting. I haven't been following news on VoIP much since I don't use it at home (even though Matt thinks I should convert over). Today, I read in the news that the state of Texas is suing Vonage, accusing them of deceptive practices after an incident in which a kid unsuccessfully called 911 because her parents had been shot from a break-in in their home. Instead, the girl got a message saying that emergency services weren't available from that phone line. Turns out that, in most cases, when you sign up for VoIP with Vonage, you have to go through an extra process to get 911 to actually work on your phone...but even then, it's not completely fail safe. See, the problem has to do with a conflict between the fundamental information that an emergency call center needs (your location) and the major selling point of having VoIP (the portability). See the conflict? See--even if Vonage used, say, your billing address as the address associated with your account, who says you can't just pick up your box, head to Hong Kong, and make a phone call from there? If you called 911 from there, they'd have no idea. Anyway, I just found this all interesting. Here's an interesting editorial on this topic with suggestions on what can be done.