Re: Constitutionality of Universal Service Fund

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

. . .

I suspect the issue is with E911 Phase 2 service.  That is the ability
to have a caller's location appear on the 911 operator's console when a
call comes in.  Before cell phones it was a simple lookup in the phone
company's records for the location of the landline phone in their
billing records.  With cell phones it is done by triangulating on the
cell phone's location from the ping/transmission time to the nearest
cells.  This works better in urban areas where there are plenty of cell
towers/relays, not so good in the boondocks but usually enough to locate
to within a hundred meters.

I don't know if that is even possible with satellite phones.  Even if it
is it is not going to be anywhere near as accurate.

It doesn't work at all with VoIP service. All I need is an internet
connection and a device that does SIP -- either an ATA (analogue
telephone adapter) or a digital telephone instrument with SIP built in.
One is supposed to change the database record each time the equipment is
moved, but no one does.