New Telephone Systems VOIP

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coppertreeelectric

Senior Member
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

I would imagine in some of the more rural areas the GPS, and E911 may be more crucial in finding where the emergency is. [/QUOTE

Just an FYI, all Nextel phones are now equip with GPS tracking software. If you make a 911 call from a Nextel, Nextel can track you location.

I'm not saying that 911 knows where you are but Nextel does.

We use Nextel phones and we track our employees locations on the Nextel website. Nice feature they offer.
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

Steven, does it track 24/7, or just when turned on?

There's an app on my phone called "Xora" that supposedly tracks my time, where I am. But I tend to believe that if they look to see where I am with Xora off, I'm pretty sure they can find me. :)

(Not that it really makes a difference: I still get called with, "Hey, where you at?" I have to suppress guffaws when I respond. :p
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

Originally posted by coppertreeelectric:
We use Nextel phones and we track our employees locations on the Nextel website. Nice feature they offer.
Thats nice..... :roll:

Nothing like trust between owner and employee. :roll:
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

I know a guy who has a simple solution for GPS: Leave his radio at the job when he goes out for a two-hour lunch after showing up two hours late, and leaving two hours early. :)
 

coppertreeelectric

Senior Member
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

Nothing like trust between owner and employee.
Its not a matter of trust. We do mostly service work, when a customer calls and asks when our tech will arive I can look and tell the customer "Our electrician is just around the corner from you and he should be there in 2min."

If it was a trust issue they wouldn't work for me. I am one of the easiest people to work for and give allot of slack.
 

apauling

Senior Member
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

one of the things missed about the tracking ability with phones is the 9/11 disaster and homeland security. tracking cell phone locations has been on law enforcement's list for a long time. the disaster has helped push through some laws that would not otherwise cut through the "invasion-of-personal-privacy" "right-to-personal-freedom" concepts in the constitution.

You know that it's law enforcement when the new push is for remote responding, or the ability to remotely turn the phone on when off.

paul
 

dereckbc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Plano, TX
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

Cooper and anyone else who cares to know. All new cell phones have GPS. Your phone company may not be able or unwilling for you to use it, but Uncle Sam can and does. I track people down a couple times a week for law enforcement.
 

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

or the ability to remotely turn the phone on when off

Didn't know that either. If that's true I suppose it does have it's advantages but I think it will have a chilling effect on our right to privacy.

I also wonder how useful it would be. When the "wrong" people realize this can be done they will just yank the battery.

-Hal
 

sfav8r

Senior Member
Re: New Telephone Systems VOIP

We use Vonage as well.

911 is not an issue because when your service is setup you simply enter the service address and that information is transmitted to 911 when you call.

As far as the power going out, I'll make two points:

1) Anyone using anything but a basic telephone has a better than even chance it won't work without power (cordless, phone system, etc).

2) With VOIP or any other system that doesn't work without power, just use a battery backup for your modem or whatever requires power. A $50 backup will run your VOIP for longer than your power is likely to ever be out.

In our experience, the biggest problem with VOIP has bee voice quality. It is great about 95% of the time, but if we are downloading something on the Internet, we occasionally notice a degradation of the voice quality.

Even given this, the features offered by Vonage (probably other too) far outweigh the disadvantages for us.
 
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