Quote from: SteveInWA on April 01, 2016, 04:13:51 PM
Quote from: KevinObi on April 01, 2016, 11:23:32 AM
Unfortunately, as I suspected, CallCentric free is not free. If you are in the US you are forced to pay $1.50 fee and $1.50 a month. The whole goal here with Obitalk is the free part.
Anyone else figure a way around this problem ?
Anyone who is too cheap/stubborn to pay for E911 service on their home phone belongs on the waiting list for the Darwin Award.
Then I guess I get the award. Not everyone lives in an accessible area with services at their fingertips. Heck we don't have street lights down here.
GPS on a cellphone will have the same issues as I mention, because current location of some houses leaves large gaps in how to get to them. Most of my VOIP lines are in various states far from here. 5 are in the U.K. so depending upon which line is chosen it may appear as though the call is coming from overseas.
My address for cable and water is one street away (perhaps a mile round-about to their address from my house). So those service addresses are nowhere near the house.
The road where I live was renamed. It used to be called Hua Nui Rd and shows up on all maps as Hua Nui, but the county says Hua Nui is a few miles down the road. So we decided to take matters in our own hands and had the street dedicated as Manako Rd. There is no other road by that name in the county.
There is no mail delivery near our houses because th post office can't figure out where the houses are and delivery to many would require 4-wheel drive.
A firetruck could not maneuver to our house, or if they go to the address on the other street, there is a 500 foot hike through a jungle and rocky area to get fire hoses to the house. This would be by following the electrical and cable lines to the house. Water comes from a property a few houses away and goes through someone else's property; literally jungles.
So we use a TMK (Tax Map Key) to identify each house down here instead of mailing or delivery addresses. Even with the TMK I would have to give them directions. E-911 and even expended E-911 services probably don't allow for complicated directions.
From the highway, go 8/10ths of a mile makai (towards ocean) take a left on the street with the mailboxes (Manako Road), go 2/10's of a mile and look for the farm name on the sign just before the culvert. This is a sharp right turn and a regular-sized fire turck will not be able to turn. When you get to the water tanks, make a sharp left, go to the culvert, make a sharp right, follow that down about 500 feet, make a sharp right, then a sharp left and go down the hill (that is a 4-wheel drive hill) and follow the driveway to the house. If needing a fireplug, it is about 3/4 mile back. If you want to use the closest one it is perhaps 1000 feet through the woods. If you can use a pumper I have 20,000 gallons of water available in a catchment tank, but no approved fire connection, you will have to drop a line into the tank and suck it out.
So even with the TMK they need directions.
Mail? Since the mail box is out on the highway perhaps 1/2 mile away, I just use a PO Box.
If the fire was caused by active lava, the above directions won't help because the driveway will be a river of 2,000 F degree rock. Yes, I know most people don't have rivers of rock, but I live in Paradise.
I am one of the lucky ones that has a firehouse a few miles away, even if they can't easily get to the house.
My neighbors down the road are not so lucky.
The fire was under control within 20 minutes, but it took another 2½ hours to put it out because of a lack of a nearby water. Capt. Kel Kunimoto of the HOVE fire station said a tanker truck had to shuttle water from a community water tank four miles away.
The house was completely destroyed. An estimate of its value was not immediately available.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Another
The fire started at about 9:15 a.m. and the structure burned down before firefighters could arrive, said Capt. Robert Perreira of the Hawaii Fire Department's Prevention Bureau. The nearest fire station is in Pahoa, about 15 miles away.And this report:
http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-news/lava-claims-final-home.htmlYes, I may be an exception to the rule, but if you are using GoogleVoice you are out of luck with e-911 anyway. Does everyone with an adapter or IP phone call and change their physical address when they travel?
There may be many other reasons people consider E-911 service to be a waste of money and just another government forced issue that does not serve every-ones needs.