"It only takes one" was going to be the title of this column, but I had to change it after a ride home on Tuesday and hearing the news. More on that below.

You're having a heart attack at home. Your 5-year-old daughter dials 911, like she's been taught in kindergarten. She gets this message:

"Stop. You must dial 911 from another telephone. 911 is not available from this telephone line. No emergency personnel will be dispatched."

She won't know what to do, and she'll cry while you lay on the floor. It has already happened, only with a 17-year-old, and her parents were bleeding from the gunshot wounds of two armed robbers.

Voice-over-IP 911 has already become the subject of talk radio, so the next step is logically this: On March 21, the attorney general of Texas announced that he is suing Vonage in reference to the above-mentioned armed robbers case.

It has been stated that VoIP is cheaper because a company doesn't have to offer all of the services offered by traditional wireline companies. It may or may not be true, but the perception is already there in the marketplace. The story is that the customer has to "activate the service (911) after being notified by an e-mail."

Next newspaper headline: "Greedy VoIP providers refuse to save lives and provide E911."

When the first discussions came out in the trade magazines regarding the difficulties in proving E911 for VoIP, I said to myself (and anyone else who would listen): "It's going to take a dead child to drive the regulators and providers to enable E911, and it'll take years (most likely 10) before they all provide it without weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." Vonage is providing it in Rhode Island, according to the Associated Press, but it took two years.

Does any of this sound familiar? Does this sound like the discussions that took place before wireless E911 was mandated and carriers requested extensions on implementation dates? Wireless E911 appears on the news now on a regular basis: When the person in the car that is off the road 3 miles is found, wireless 911 is touted.

I understand the business decisions made that deliver the product to the market first to get the early-adopter customers and the "schnooks" (Schnook power, March 14, 2005, in print and on TelephonyOnline). I understand the decisions by the early adopters (I have a consultant friend who has embraced VoIP for himself--and his mom--and readily discussed it with me when I first broached the subject). The early adopters understand the risks that they undertake in early adoption. Your five-year-old daughter won't understand.

The cost savings of not automatically activating the service may disappear in the legal fees that have already begun in Texas and, most likely, spread to other states (New York, California, and Florida come to mind as very visible). Is it cheaper to comply first? Or to comply only after legal action for a period of time? What's the real total cost of ownership after the possible lost customers and bad publicity?

That nasty, ugly, messy back office has struck again. Again, the back office isn't the sexiest area of the business, but it's the part that retains the customers and partners. Spend the resources on cleaning and upgrading the back offices--please. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The first to do so will become the owner of the customers.

Ben Allen Francis is principal/CIM of Cremos Partners, an independent consulting firm in Texas. E-mail him at bafrancis@cremosp.com.