Lack of Emergency Calls Services in VoIP

To some, it might come as a surprise that VoIP does not have support to dial 999 calls. A debate has been broiling about whether it is acceptable for VoIP providers to omit emergency service calls from the VoIP service. Truphone’s CEO James Tagg offers his stand on the issue just as industry regulator Ofcom offers to consult on the need to force VoIP providers to provide 999 calls.

According to Tagg, the reason 999 calls are not introduced into VoIP as of now is due to the lack of reliability as compared to traditional means, which might be detrimental when users are required to make snap decisions. This however does not mean that VoIP services will never see the 999 calls service provided at all as Tagg promised that they will eventually be introduced when the reliability of VoIP is comparable with the cellular. As of now, beginning this month, VoIP service providers are required to inform their users of the lack of emergency calls service capability on their network.

• From: mobilenews