VoIP customers must notify company when they move

A recent call to the Johnson County, Kan., Emergency Communications Center (ECC) illustrated how important it is for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) customers to register an accurate physical address with the service provider and to update that information when they move. The call taker in the Johnson County emergency center gave instructions to a woman who was delivering CPR to her husband 1,172 miles away in Mesa, Ariz. 

In most cases, a 9-1-1 call is delivered to a dispatch center with location information. This 9-1-1 call displayed an address in Mission, Kan.; however, the caller provided an address in Mesa, Ariz. It’s not uncommon for 9-1-1 dispatch centers to receive a VoIP 9-1-1 call from cities, counties or even states outside of their jurisdiction — often because a caller did not notify his VoIP service provider about a move to a new physical address.

Interconnected VoIP service allows subscribers to make and receive calls to and from traditional phone numbers using an Internet connection. While this technology often offers cost-saving and portability benefits for customers, it raises a number of challenges for emergency services. In this case, it is likely the caller did not update her physical address information with her VoIP service provider when she moved from Kansas to Arizona. Traditional wire-line service providers update address information for their customers.

A supervisor at the Johnson County ECC worked to contact emergency responders in Mesa while the call taker continued to provide CPR instructions to the woman for nearly seven minutes. From the time the Johnson County ECC call taker picked up the call to the time Mesa, Ariz., first responders arrived on the scene, nine minutes and 43 seconds passed.

VoIP customers may not realize that it is their responsibility to notify the company when they move. Not doing so could result in a dangerous loss of time when a caller needs to reach 9-1-1.