Once again backpedaling from its once-onerous deadline on E911 compliance, the Federal Communications Commission said yesterday that it will not take enforcement action against the Voice over IP service providers who have successfully notified at least 90% of their customers of the limitations of VoIP in emergency calling.

Last May, when the FCC issued the order requiring VoIP providers to implement E911 for their subscribers within 120 days, the agency also required them to notify their current users that VoIP service does not always provide automatic location information to first responder when a 911 call is made. Any customer who did not acknowledge receipt of that information was to be cut off from service. VoIP providers have been scrambling ever since, both to put in place E911 infrastructure and to notify customers. The FCC extended the original deadline by a month and now has conceded that those providers being diligent in their efforts to contact customers should not have to cut off service to the stragglers.

In a public notice, the FCC said “it is evident that many providers have devoted significant resources to notifying each of their subscribers of the limitations of their 911 service and obtaining acknowledgements from each of their subscribers.”

Twenty-one VoIP providers have hit the 100% notification goal already and another 37 are over 90%, the agency said. Those companies will not face enforcement of the original ruling. VoIP providers who haven’t hit the 90% goal could face enforcement proceedings on Oct 31, 2005. They must file an update on their compliance efforts with the FCC as of Oct. 25.

‘We commend the FCC's decisive action to extend the enforcement deadline and on behalf of our nearly one million customers, thank them for their consideration of this critical public safety issue,” said Jeffrey A. Citron, chairman and CEO, Vonage Holdings Corp., in a prepared statement. “The Commission has put much thought and deliberation into establishing a baseline threshold of 90% affirmative acknowledgement and should be praised for their leadership.”