The “911 exception” to the FCC’s IP Relay...

The “911 exception” to the FCC’s IP Relay Service rules has been eliminated, said the FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in an order Tuesday (http://bit.ly/S75J80). The FCC had required IP relay providers to let unverified users of its service place calls to 911 operators. 911 centers began seeing a growing trend of “spoofing 911 calls via IP Relay,” the bureau said. Sprint told the bureau last month that IP relay has been used to “trick Public Safety Answering Points” into “dispatching emergency services based on false reports of emergency situations,” the order said. Because these calls at times have required the dispatch of police special weapons and tactical teams, “this mischief has been referred to as ’swatting.'” Because those actions “have the potential to cause alarm and even danger for the targeted residents and emergency service personnel, in addition to wasting the limited resources of emergency responders,” the bureau granted a one-year waiver of the requirement that IP relay providers enable unverified IP relay registrants to place calls to 911 during a “guest period.” Allowing such use of the service for 911 calls “endangers the safety the public,” said the bureau. It said the agency will proceed with a rulemaking on this and other issues addressing the provision of IP Relay services.