The IT Nerd

You’ll remember that I did a post a while back about a toddler who died due to the fact that the VoIP provider that the family was using had the wrong address in their 911 system (despite having the proper billing address on file). Well the CRTC investigated this and is holding the VoIP provider Comwave responsible for this tragic incident:

“However, the CRTC’s letters suggest that Comwave should have immediately called the family back after the line was disconnected. As well, the regulator indicates that not enough steps were taken by the call centre, which is employed on a third-party contract, to determine the location of the emergency.

“Comwave’s third-party call centre operator did not follow the proper procedures for determining a 911 caller’s location, when it responded to the call,””

However Comwave disputes that this is the case. Comwave chief executive officer Yuval Barzakay argues that there are no rules that say the call should have been handled in the manner described above. Of interest, Comwave tried to keep this report private saying it’s release would “cause material and financial loss” which is corporate speak for “If this is made public, people will dump our service because people will think we suck and we’re screwed.” It’s a good thing The Globe And Mail is really good at digging this stuff up.

Here’s where things fall apart. The CRTC really can’t do anything to punish Comwave:

“Even though the CRTC believes Comwave did not follow proper procedures, the regulator can do little to punish the company. “We are somewhat limited,” said Paul Godin, a director general at the CRTC.”

I believe they already have punished the company. By simply releasing this report they have effectively crippled Comwave because people who have their service will likely bolt to other telco services after reading the Globe And Mail article or this blog posting. After all, nothing hurts a company more than taking away its cash flow. This report will do certainly do that.

This entry was posted on July 30, 2008 at 8:08 am and is filed under Commentary with tags VOIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.