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A teenager was unable to call an ambulance after her parents were shot in February because the family’s internet phone service did not offer access to the 911emergency number.A baby died in March for the same reason.Sad tales such as these led America’s Federal Communications Commission （FCC）to vote on May 19th to require internet phone companies to offer a 911service.
In so doing，the FCC seemed to have taken its first，big step towards imposing traditional telecoms rules on the internet—a contentious move given the fears that this will strangle what many still regard as an infant industry，especially if regulators elsewhere follow suit.But are the new rules really so bad？
The new rules uphold a subset of telecoms policy，social objectives，which is much less burdensome than the FCC’S hugely unpopular economic regulation.Many providers of internet telephony—strictly，Voice over Internet Protocol （VOIP）—have for years sought the technical ability to provide an emergency service，knowing that such a feature would be essential were internet telephony ever to become a truly credible alternative to the traditional phone service.Incumbent operators that manage the emergency-service sys tem have not always made it easy for the upstarts to interconnect，which costs a provider almost $10m a year for nationwide service.The FCC has signaled that incumbent operators had better now act fairly.
Moreover，the new rules apply only to certain firms，are easy to implement，and pro vide flexibility for future technical improvements.Only firms that offer VOIP via the public telephone network will have to provide 911，and to use it their customers will have to register their addresses.Only when internet technology is developed to allow the network to tell where a phone is connected to it will other VOIP operators be required to introduce this facility.Significantly，services based mainly on software，such as voice-enabled instant-messenger programs or online video games，which do not try to resemble regular phone service，are exempt.
All in all then，the new policy is unlikely to do much to slow a business now growing rapidly worldwide.In America，VOIP is on track to exceed $1billion in revenue this year，with over 3m users.Many ordinary phone firms now use the technology to connect calls，helping VOIP to account for a growing slice of international phone traffic.
Having found an elegant way to impose 911rules on VOIP，the FCC’s next challenge will be to secure wire-tapping capability for law-enforcement surveillance.This is an issue that similarly has been quietly debated for years.It may take another set of tragedies before it is mandated in a quick，unanimous vote by the regulators.