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November 08, 2005

Please hang up and dial 9-1-1

If you are an internet phone user you should read this CNN transcript:

COOPER: Cheryl, thank you so much for being with us. I'm so sorry for your loss.

CHERYL WALLER, INTERNET PHONE USER: Thank you.

COOPER: I know -- I can only imagine how painful this is for you. But take us back to that night. You realized the baby wasn't breathing. You called 911, what happened?

WALLER: The only thing I received on the other end was hang up and dial 911. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911. So I did. Several times. And eventually I realized I wasn't getting anybody. So I grabbed her and I ran across the street and I had my neighbors call 911.

COOPER: And how long was it before help arrived?

WALLER: I don't know. It seemed like forever.

COOPER: When you signed up for phone service through the Internet with Vonage, you actually signed an agreement that acknowledged you weren't going to receive the traditional 911 services. They said that when you dial 911 the call is routed from the Vonage network to the public safety answering point or local emergency service personnel. That's what it said in the agreement. Did you realize you were signing that?

WALLER: That was never made clear to me. There's no way I would have ever had a 911 service in my house that was connected to a non- emergency number. I have several children in my home and now I have one less.

COOPER: Mike, you haven't filed a lawsuit yet. I understand the issue is being looked at by a number of states. What do you want to see happen?

MIKE SMITH, WALLER'S ATTORNEY: Well, Anderson, there's several things that we are hoping to accomplish. First of all, awareness. We want the public to be aware of the fact -- for those people that are signing up for 911 Internet service. We want them to be aware of the fact that what they are getting may not actually be the traditional 911 service that they think that they are getting.

In fact in this particular case Ms. Waller received an 11-page service agreement. And buried within the service agreement that had 54 sections -- buried within that is the terms that actually told you it's really limited 911 that you are getting. And we want the public to ask questions. Those people that have Vonage or any other Internet phone we want them to ask the question so when an emergency happens they don't find themselves in a situation that Ms. Waller did. COOPER: Cheryl, did you try to call Vonage? The next day I understand you called them. What did they say to you?

WALLER: They actually laughed and said they could not revive a baby.

COOPER: The person you called to that company laughed?

WALLER: Yes. They were -- it was a woman named Marcia (ph). She was laughing at me. She says, I can't revive a baby and then she thought she put me on hold and went in the background for another five minutes and laughed about it and joked about it.

COOPER: We spoke to a representative of Vonage who refused to address specifically the question of whether the death of your daughter had to do with the service but they did say this, they said, quote, "Our hearts go out to the Waller family and we are doing everything in our power to make sure that this never happens again. In the meantime, we are sending calls to live manned emergency centers. In the event we cannot send the calls to a live, manned emergency service center, we are sending the calls to a live manned phone line at a local law enforcement agency."

Cheryl, is this enough?

WALLER: No, because that live manned phone they say is at a police station, it could be the front desk where an operator went home for the day. That is not enough. Stop advertising you have 911. You don't have it. Stop advertising it.

Posted by Mike at November 8, 2005 01:02 PM

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