Gigabyte March on Washington

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin calls for action on VoIP-911 issue. Local communities and FTC will also have a say on the problem.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has asked his staff to address the difficulty VoIP carriers have providing their customers with access to emergency 911 services.

Mr. Martin told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that he asked his staff to develop a plan to address the problem.

Verizon Answers VoIP 911 Call 

Verizon Communications said Tuesday it will test a major improvement to VoIP performance by directing its subscribers’ 911 emergency calls to the appropriate authorities.

The dedicated system will not just route the calls to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), but will automatically provide the PSAP operator with the name and address of the subscriber associated with the telephone number.

Qwest Communications has agreed to give Vonage access to its 911 infrastructure. The deal will allow 911 calls from Vonage customers to travel over Qwest's emergency calling infrastructure in 14 states, enabling the calls to proceed directly to emergency dispatchers. News of the arrangement appeared in a letter Vonage sent to the FCC earlier this week.

More on this story from C|Net News.com

Federal law requires a 60 % accuracy on Cell phone 911 calls according this Sun-Time article. But Chicago's head of the city's 911 center has sent letters to six cell phone providers in the area after a random test revealed that emergency operators were not always able to locate people who were using a cell phone to call for help.

McLeod's future as one of the past dominant CLECs is fading fast and will perhaps become another casualty in the war between the BOCs and MSOs. In an article in Smart Money, it lays out a good example of what the possibilities are for MeLeod.

Though the article mentions Time Warner and Comcast as potential buyers and XO and other CLECs, I still feel L3 should take a look at McLeod.

Law.com has an article today on Verizon's hired legal guns for the pending MCI merger. Four seperate law firms based out of Washington have been retained by Verizon.

O'Melveny & Myers, led by former Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy J. Muris, who stepped down last year to return to teaching at George Mason University School of Law.

Howrey Simon Arnold & White, led by former Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jim Rill. Appointed by President Reagan, he has a long-standing relationship with William Barr, Verizon's general counsel.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, led by former Acting Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust A. Douglas Melamed, also known in the broader legal community for his seminal work on property theory with Guido Calabresi (now a judge), "Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral."

Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, led by Mark Hansen, a highly regarded litigator, and Evan Leo, a telecommunications expert.

BellSouth has been ordered to pay $16.5 million to two small West Palm Beach, Fla.-based telemarketing firms for hiring them to increase its small-business clientele then improperly firing the firms after copying their marketing techniques. More on this story  here...