FCC eases its deadline on Internet for 911 calls

NEW YORK — The Federal Communications Commission backed off again Tuesday on enforcing a deadline for Internet phone service providers to disconnect all customers who haven’t acknowledged that they understand it may be hard to reach a live emergency dispatcher when dialing 911.

The agency explained that the status reports required from every Internet phone company last week showed that by “repeatedly prompting subscribers through a variety of means, the majority of providers …. have obtained acknowledgments from nearly all, if not all, of their subscribers.”

The decision came a day before a deadline that would have required Internet phone companies to cut off at least 10,000 of the estimated 2.7 million users of the service in the United States.

The FCC said providers who have received confirmations from at least 90 percent of their subscribers will no longer face the disconnection requirement, but still must continue seeking the remaining acknowledgments.

All carriers below the 90 percent threshold will have until Oct. 31 to reach that level and avoid the disconnection requirement.

Vonage Holdings Corp., the biggest carrier with more than 1 million subscribers, told the Associated Press on Monday that 99 percent of its customer base have responded to the company’s notices about 911 risks. But that still meant that about 10,000 accounts stood to be shut off as early as today.

The deadline, originally set for a month ago before a last-minute reprieve by FCC, was intended as an interim safeguard while Internet phone companies rush to comply with another FCC order that they add full 911 capabilities by late November.

Critics had been increasingly vocal in questioning the wisdom of abruptly leaving users without any calling capability, particularly a type of phone service that came through in a pinch in the chaos after Hurricane Katrina.

Cut off from traditional and cellular phone service by the floods after the storm, a top aide to the mayor of New Orleans managed to re-establish communications with the outside world — including President Bush — using a broadband connection and an Internet phone account.