Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm 911 charges on the horizon?

bitstopjoe · Post by **bitstopjoe** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:38 pm

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/West ... ees-112279

nailgunner · Post by **nailgunner** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:10 pm

I think you can shortly add this county to the state of Alaska as the one's that will have it's whole area blocked. Block the whole county and suddenly no one will be calling 911 within the county.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:42 pm

nailgunner wrote:I think you can shortly add this county to the state of Alaska as the one's that will have it's whole area blocked. Block the whole county and suddenly no one will be calling 911 within the county.

You know in some ways that may not be bad. 911 charges attached to each line are really unfair. They should be based on locations not the number of lines at that location and funded by property taxes.

Most localities now fund there entire emergency dispatch using these funds.

Homes who happen to have say two or three MJ's for their kids etc. wind up paying more than their fair share of the costs.

Sanitation fees pay for garbage collection, then your charged water and sewer fees to fund these services. Many charge for ambulance service.

So what exactly does your property tax go for? Police and Fire are IMHO the only useful services left; and remember that their dispatch is funded by the 911 charges. I would just as soon see all the fashion police (aka code enforcement) etc get fired.

Kif Kroker · Post by **Kif Kroker** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:11 am

If this 911 fee goes through, what I foresee happening is that the basic MJ service will not include 911 service, at least for areas that charge MJ these fees, and probably make it an additional cost feature for the areas that do.

Dave

SIR****TMG · Post by **SIR****TMG** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:40 am

Wow glad I do 1 year at a time indeeed

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 11:39 pm

I do not see any problem in dropping 911 service from MJ. It makes no sense to rely on it anyway.
The other solution would be not to provide area codes /exchanges within that county.

crackerjack · Post by **crackerjack** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 12:58 am

cell14 wrote:I do not see any problem in dropping 911 service from MJ. It makes no sense to rely on it anyway.
The other solution would be not to provide area codes /exchanges within that county.

I think there are statutory requirements for them to support 911/e911 that even Dan the inventor cannot escape. Look for this fee to be passed along soon.

gashliquor · Post by **gashliquor** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:52 am

crackerjack wrote:
cell14 wrote:I do not see any problem in dropping 911 service from MJ. It makes no sense to rely on it anyway.
The other solution would be not to provide area codes /exchanges within that county.
I think there are statutory requirements for them to support 911/e911 that even Dan the inventor cannot escape. Look for this fee to be passed along soon.

Your right CJ they are statutory requirements aka e911 and in some instances are up to a $15.00 a yr fee alone.

genxweb · Post by **genxweb** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:23 am

Right now with VoIP My Way. I get charged from the provider 1.00 per month per number for 911 fees plus a per minute charge if actually used. So there are fees there already just as not as high as 3.00 per month.

VaHam · Post by **VaHam** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:10 pm

genxweb wrote:Right now with VoIP My Way. I get charged from the provider 1.00 per month per number for 911 fees plus a per minute charge if actually used. So there are fees there already just as not as high as 3.00 per month.

That is a much more reasonable fee. For 911 charges to exceed the cost of the telephone circuit itself is outrageous! Think about it I doubt if the average line calls 911 once every couple of years but the cost of having someone answer those calls is way higher than the cost of phone service which is probably used many times per day.

I don't know what the local phone company charges for the call diverter at the central offices currently; but back several years ago when I chaired a committee for our county to get 911 installed to begin with the fee was $0.30/month. At that time police and fire dispatchers were paid for by their respective departments out of general funds collected by property taxes in the county and visible in the counties annual budget.

The problem is that the state legislature passed laws allowing the localities to tack on charges for the 911 service to include pretty much anything they wanted. The green shown in the eyes of the board of supervisors and they realized they had a new form of hidden tax (aka: usage fee). So they purchased an old bank building, installed a lot equipment and pay the dispatcher's salaries etc all in the name of 911.

cell14 · Post by **cell14** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 4:26 pm

I think there are statutory requirements for them to support 911/e911 that even Dan the inventor cannot escape.

MJ is officially not a phone service, but a "multi-media" service. That's the reason why it escapes all those( in our srewed up state rather formidable) taxes , fees and surcharges. I am not a legal expert in telecom taxation so i cannot say whether this reasoning applies to the 911 capability and/ or 911 charges or not. I am inclined to believe that it does not . There is a huge gray area here anyway
Look just at the cell service, which are by all means a telecom service. One of my cell phones has the area code from a neigboring countyto the south, the other one from the county to the west. My county is not getting a penny on 911 fees from me.
MJ is a portable device. Are you going to charge for 911 to somebody who uses it in China? What about creating virtual area codes not belonging to any county? what about choosing area codes/exchanges in areas without 911 surcharge ? With google voice, it is a piece of cake.
Those county guys in VW should not have touched this issues and look somewhere else to finance their county employee retirement benefits.