[1] Should VoIP include 911/999 service, and how does one resolve the various geographic location issues associated with this.
Anyone who claims to answer this one should consider the how to handle the case of a British subscriber to a VoIP service who travels to the USA, Canada, all over Europe and Australia. What would happen if a native of one of those countries picked up the VoIP device and dialled for emergency services. In Canada and the USA they would dial 911 In the UK they would dial 999 In Europe they would dial 112 or possibly one of the various legacy national numbers for emergency service. And in Australia they would dial 000. Do you route all these calls to Britain? Do you use some sort of geographical locator database for IP addresses to route the call? Do you route the call based on the actual number dialed, i.e. all 000 calls go to Australia? Or do we pass legislation requiring the RIRs and all ISPs to maintain a database with the current physical location of every device with an IP address? Personally I don't think the regulators have a clear enough grasp of the technical issues to be prescribing solutions for this issue. --Michael Dillon P.S. I think a solution lies in the general direction of converting the entire world to use 112 for emergency services and having the VoIP services set up an automated system that rings back whenever your phone connects using a different IP address and asks you where you are.