VOIP Vendors Hitting Some Rough Spots

The FCC this week ordered VOIP (Voice over IP) service vendors to provide 911 service as a standard feature of their voice services within the next 4 to 6 months. Currently, several VOIP vendors do not provide what is considered a standard 911 service. Several states have legal actions against several VOIP vendors over this issue. Here in Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal is suing Vonage, a popular VOIP vendor.

Obviously, this is a good idea, although I'm not sure that the FCC has or should have the power to issue this type of order. The market itself will force this to happen. Similar to cell phone 911, there are issues with VOIP that make 911 more difficult to implement. Namely, cell phones and VOIP phones can be mobile. This makes location information difficult to track. I'm sure technology will solve the problem. VOIP carriers should have to provide useful 911 service. We have become dependent upon it.

The interesting thing is that standard voice carriers control the 911 services and have made it difficult for VOIP vendors to connect to them in a move to squash the competition. This ruling requires that they open the lines. Ironically, their monopoly practices have backfired on them.

I have been using VOIP for over a year. While there are still some problems with the technology, it is very much viable. The cost of the calls is drastically cheaper than standard phone service and the capabilities are fantastic. 911 service has been a problem. This order will correct that. Standard voice vendors are in for a tough time. VOIP is real and combined with wireless Internet, will eventually mean we don't need the SBC's of the world. I can't wait!

SSGI Off-Line Today 5-4-05

Northeast Utilities will be doing some work in our area today and have informed us that our power will be off from about 8:30am to 12:30pm. Our phone system is on battery backup so we expect to have phone service for most if not all of the outage. Our servers will be shut off so email and file access will be down. We will check email intermittently from outside the office.

Watch That Spelling!

It's amazing to see what the idiot Spyware creators will do to infect your computer. An Internet security firm, F-Secure has discovered a malicious website at googkle.com Do you know how many people go to Google every day? Of those how many might spell it this way by mistake? The site will attempt to take advantage of unpatched Windows systems and force Spyware onto your machine.

So... watch your spelling. This is not the only site that does this. I have run into others. Next, keep Windows and all your applications up to date with patches and hotfixes. And never, never, never buy anything from a company that has spammed you or was involved in infecting your machine with Spyware. In fact, let them know you do not appreciate this type of "marketing".

Microsoft Planning Blackberry Type Technology

Microsoft has a family of products called Windows Mobile, which is designed for mobile devices like Pocket PC's and cell phones. Currently, email can be received on these devices by the user "pulling" the messages from the server. The next upgrade of Window Mobile will allow email to be "pushed" to the devices. This is what the RIM Blackberry device does. It's basically on-line all the time and mail is sent to it without the user needing to request it.

This product is just one of many for mobile devices that Microsoft will roll out over the next year. It will be interesting to see how well it works. Microsoft has also announced a joint project with RIM that will allow it's technologies to work with the Blackberry devices. Covering all the bases I guess!

Here's some info on Windows Mobile.

HIPAA Security Rule In Effect 4/20

As everyone in the Health Care profession is aware, the HIPAA Security Rule goes into effect on Wednesday 4/20. This rule requires most Health Care Providers implement mechanisms to protect the Integrity, Security, and availability of Electronic Protected Health Information. Basically, if you transmit EPHI in any fashion, you must comply with the Rule.

We have been working with our Health Care Clients to help them become compliant. One of the tools we have been using is a Blog dedicated to the Security Rule. You can view it by Clicking Here. This is another site that contains some good HIPAA information.