Bill Nelson: “I thank the Senate. This has been 2 years coming because 2 years ago, a young mother in Deltona, FL, which is north of…”

“I thank the Senate. This has been 2 years coming because 2 years ago, a young mother in Deltona, FL, which is north of Orlando in Volusia County, watched her baby die as she tried in vain to reach emergency 911. She had a telephone that she did not realize, because it was voice over the Internet, there was no provision for emergency 911 services. Following that tragedy of the death of that child, where a 911 emergency response team never arrived because they did not receive the call, we introduced this bipartisan legislation that requires all VOIP providers to offer the emergency 911 service, and this legislation gives them the tools they need in order to do that. We have been working on this legislation a long time. It passed the Commerce Committee unanimously in 2005. It was also added to a Senate port security bill in 2006, and then the conference committee stripped it out. Since the bill was first introduced, to the credit of the Federal Communications Commission, they took some action to require that VOIP customers have full access to the emergency 911. We appreciate that very much. But there are holes in those regulations. Those holes need to be filled, and this legislation we passed tonight--and is very similar to a House bill that passed a couple of months ago--will fill those legislative holes.”