While support is improving for Enhanced 911 emergency services on corporate VoIP systems, IT professionals and analysts say the technology is not yet standardized across platforms and can be tricky to use in mixed-vendor environments. E911 is the FCC's advanced version of the well-known 911 emergency-calling system that provides additional location data to emergency responders, such as street address and floor inside a building. Carriers have a deadline to implement all phases of e911, which includes extended data from wired phones, and the location (within 1,000 feet) for cell phone users. The FCC's deadline for implementing this system is October 2005. Residential VoIP service providerVonage last year made 911 tracking possible for its customers through a partnership with a 911 telecom services firm. For a company, one of the so-called "blessings of VoIP" turns out to be a curse in terms of e911.
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