Federal Communications Commission May Cut Off Tens Of Thousands Internet Phone Customers

The providers of Internet-based phone services will have to let go of their customers who haven't formally acknowledged that they understand the problems they may encounter dialing 911 in an emergency.

They will have to hand over the reports on the accounts to be shut off until next Monday.

All the companies that provide Internet calling service, also known as "VoIP", which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol must comply until then with an FCC order requiring full emergency 911 capabilities by late November.

The FCC issued its order in May, after a series of highly mediated incidents in which VoIP users were unable to contact with a dispatch operator when calling 911.

Vonage Holdings Corp, the biggest VoIP carrier, said that 96% of their clients have already responded, but that sill leaves about 30,000 accounts to be disconnected.
Other important company, AT&T, stated that it would comply also with the deadline.

But Time Warner Cable thinks that's not a good enough reason for disconnecting customers and that all its subscribers have been adequately informed about the risk of losing 911 service in a power outage - the most common problem VoIP services encounter.
What do subscribers think?
Well, some of them say that it's an abuse of FCC, others blame their provider for what they have mistakenly took for an arbitrary policy.

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