Back in March, I wrote the following in a note regarding the importance of five 9s reliability:

"Of course five 9s is highly desirable, because of the possible consequences of a service outage (even as temporary as it might be).  Here, the notion of expected value takes hold - i.e. even starting with a low probability event, when factoring in the bad consequences associated with it, the expected value could be high (e.g. someone who is relying on VoIP service as a primary line and all of a sudden cannot call an ambulance due to a service interruption)."

Not surprisingly, a Florida couple is trying to shut down Vonage service after they could not reach 911 during an emergency, resulting in the death of their baby girl (hat tip: Om Malik).  Regardless of the stance of a regulatory body on VoIP ("light" versus "full" regulation), there are a few social obligations that have to be fulfilled no matter what.  E911 and CALEA should be addressed (at the very least, if there is no reliable E911, consumers should be warned, and any provider claiming to offer this feature is obliged to comply with the strict guidelines for the enhanced emergency service.  If it cannot, then it is incumbent upon that provider to explicitly state that the end-user is on the hook for another E911 alternative (e.g. cell phone).

Three states (Texas, Michigan and Connecticut) are now taking action against Vonage due to the E911 issue.  The emergency service does not come pre-installed with the basic Vonage VoIP package; in order to activate the service, users need to provide the company with their addresses. In Vonage's defense, the E911 technology is typically handled by the local carriers, and getting them to open up that technology is a challenge (as claimed in this Technology Review article).  Thus far, only Bell South has been responsive, albeit it is demanding Vonage to get a CLEC certificate.  In Rhode Island, Vonage could get an E911 trial off the ground because the state owns and operates their system.

Also not surprisingly, the new FCC Chair is rumored to propose at the May 19th meeting that the Commission should require VoIP service providers to begin delivering 911 calls by September.  In other words, Martin would give a 120 day warning for all these VoIP operators to implement the service or else... Now, the "or else" clause can range from explicitly state that the VoIP service is strictly "add-on" and not a "replacement" of traditional telephony to a drastic, outright "shutdown" of the service.  I am particularly in favor of the former rather than the latter measure.  Under such a ruling, Skype, which clearly states that they do not recommend that people drop their regular phone, would be OK.  But in either case, the FCC should demand that RBOCs should open up their E911 centers to VoIP operators - and why not?  Those ILECs are losing money with E911, so this should give them an ability to cover some of their costs.