VoIP quality -- 911 reliability

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (dsr at tao.merseine.nu)]

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 10:49:14AM -0400, Josh ChaitinPollak wrote:
> 
> On May 23, 2005, at 4:11 PM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> >The FCC is being pushed pretty hard by the POTS people to regulate  
> >VOIP.
> >But, also remember that cell phones must all contain GPS technology  
> >at the
> >insistence of the FCC. Putting GPS technology in the cell phone  
> >makes sense
> >since on a cell, when dialing a number, it may be physically dialed  
> >from
> >miles away.
> 
> Why not do the same with VOIP and require them to have GSM as well?

First, GSM is a speech codec. GPS is a satellite-based locating
system.

You can't require VOIP to have GPS because VOIP doesn't require
any specialized hardware beyond a microphone and speaker and
appropriate ADC/DACs. You can have a VOIP phone implemented in
software on a laptop, or a PDA, or your mother's Windows box.

Second, the price of a hardware VOIP interface is down to $40 and
falling, whereas the cheapest GPS unit I'm aware of runs $90 or
so. 

Third, the term "VOIP" covers two or three dozen implementations
of a dozen or more protocols. 

-dsr-