As expected, the FCC today ordered voice-over-IP service providers to provide E911 service that is comparable to what existing telephone companies provide, and ordered incumbent telcos to provide access to E911 facilities, including trunks, selective routers and databases.

Major VoIP players, including Vonage, have been anticipating this ruling and have already been negotiating with incumbent telcos to gain access to the E911 infrastructure to provide the service to their customers. SunRocket announced today that it expects to meet the FCC's requirements ahead of the 120-day deadline throughout its service footprint. Vonage already announced an agreement with Verizon for E911 access and said it is negotiating with both SBC and BellSouth.

The players most affected by the ruling are likely to be smaller VoIP companies who don't have the resources to connect nationally to the E911 infrastructure, given the differing requirements for individual public safety access points, said John Muleta, the former head of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and now co-chair of Venable LLP's Communications group in Washington, D.C. He believes many of the VoIP players will have to use a CLEC infrastructure, already designed to provide E911, in order to meet the 120-day deadline.

"The FCC has said, 'We don't care how you do it, as long as you do it,'" said Muleta, who oversaw the development of E911 for wireless carriers. "Initially, they may have to adopt an interim solution that is more expensive." That will likely drive up the cost for VoIP service.

Service providers outside the consumer VoIP realm generally praised the ruling.

"The FCC's action seems fair and demonstrates a willingness to make tough calls quickly, rather than allowing the decision-making to drag out as technology makes rules obsolete before the rules are put in place," said Glenn Reynolds, BellSouth vice president, federal regulatory. "BellSouth has already committed to offer access to its E-911 infrastructure to accommodate VoIP providers' needs for both fixed and nomadic solutions and is prepared to make these services available expeditiously."

Level 3 Communications also applauded the ruling as a necessary step if VoIP is going to be a primary line replacement for voice service. The company has built a national E911 infrastructure that reaches 67% of the U.S. population, says Charles Meyers, group vice president of marketing. "Whether we could reach 100% in the time frames outlined by the order would be a significant challenge," he said. Even more challenging, he said, is E911 service for nomadic VoIP users--the ones who take their terminal adapters on the road and use them to get VoIP through broadband connections at hotels or other sites.

"Those applications are harder, the solutions are quite technically possible, we are working through those as we speak, and we are definitely on the front edge of meeting those, but 120 days might be unrealistic," Meyers said.

Under the rules, VoIP providers must inform their customers of the status of their E911 service by the end of the 120 days. Longer-term, the complications of connecting to PSAPs nationally when there is no common standard for doing so presents a challenge to start-up companies, Muleta said.

"The second stage of this is get down to the level of actually delivering the services in an accurate manner nationwide across PSAPs and ILEcs that have different standards," he said. "It's one thing when you are talking about a single-family home, but when you are talking about a 40-story building downtown, where you must be able to identify the room or apartment, it's a very different challenge."

FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy conceded in her comments that merely issuing the order isn't going to solve the public safety problem.

"Can we wave a magic wand and make all VoIP devices E911-capable immediately? Unfortunately no, we can't," she stated. "We know there will be a number of situations in which making the technology work is going to prove very challenging. And we do not want to prevent new, lower cost communication alternatives from being offered to consumers. But if our item today stands for anything, it stands for the fact that this commission is united in solving whatever problems, and doing whatever is necessary, to make sure that Americans will be empowered, not hurt, by this technology that can otherwise offer them so many advantages."

The ruling could be a boon for companies such as TeleCommunications Systems that provide a third-party solution for smaller VoIP companies.

It would make sense for smaller VoIP players to turn to larger aggregators, with greater economies of scale, said Muleta.