Networking

There are plenty of good reasons to build your own personal website. Perhaps you’d like to share archival photos and documents with friends and family members, exhibit your prized baseball card collection, publish a novel, or simply blog about your life and travels. These are all good motivators to sign up for a reliable and reasonably priced web content-management toolset.Beyond the free “personal” web pages offered by Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networks — in which your personal information becomes part of the network’s lingua franca — there are several excellent yet free or inexpensive web services that offer alternative ways to establish your own internet stake in the ground. These website-building products enable users to design, provision, and maintain a personal website in minutes or hours, depending upon how much time and effort one chooses to spend on the project.Working with a website builder is relatively easy because they offer a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing interface — meaning what you see. At the same time, you edit your site is what you will actually see if your website was live and viewed in a browser. The best website builders are rich in features that include professionally designed website templates, easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editors, and onboard hosting services.Chief criteria used for this list include Intuitive usability (easy-to-follow instructions and performance)Ease of design (drag and drop controls, wizards, pre-built templates)A domain name includedProfessional emailMobile device-readinessSecurity optionsSpecial features (is it commerce-ready?)Optimization for search enginesSome of these listed services will have all of the above; some will miss one or more of these but may offer other features.See more: ZDNet’s list of best e-commerce site builders

Best of the free options

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One thing that comes out clearly in research here is that Wix is a head-and-shoulders No. 1 by acclamation of the resources we used. Wix is an intuitive-to-use site builder with hundreds of page templates — most of which are attractively designed — drag-and-drop elements, easy-to-follow wizards, and a menu of helpful widgets.For people looking to get a website online with minimal effort and maximum creative freedom, Wix should be one of your test choices. No coding or FTP knowledge is required. All a user needs is an email address to get started with Wix’s web hosting. If you don’t mind ads, you can publish a site free of charge for as long as you like. It’s that way with all the free sites.Wix offers total creative control in that you can drag anything, anywhere. It also offers online storage for site assets, e-commerce tools, useful video backgrounds, and title animations. Wix’s new Editor X interface is intuitive to use and respected in the highly competitive field of website-building services. In summary, Wix is a simple-to-use, multi-faceted tool that is well worth a test drive–whether for its free or paid versions. Wix’s most important features:Intuitive Editor X interface.Many optional widgets.Hundreds of templates for specific businesses and other uses.Good mobile-site-building tools.Rich web-store features.Excellent uptime and customer service support.Many commerce options, including the ability to sell digital downloads.Free version option.Wix pricing plans: Basic: no cost, ad-supported; Combo account (3GB of storage and 2GB of monthly data transfers), $14 per month; VIP plan (35GB of storage, a domain name, unlimited monthly data transfers, a professional logo, and priority support), $39 per month. Business sites with shopping carts and other features go for between $23 and $49 per month.Enterprise-level plans require consultation with Wix and start at $500 per month. For details, go here.

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Established high quality based on open source

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WordPress is by far the most utilized internet content management system in the world, powering 37 million sites — about 40% of all websites in 2021, according to market analyst Kinsta and researcher Netcraft. WordPress also owns a commanding 60.8% share of the CMS market; Digital.com reports that it powers 30% of the world’s top 1000 websites.Since its founding in 2003, the open source-based WordPress provides hosting for more than 500 sites built each day somewhere in the world. WordPress’s Plugin Directory features 54 000+ free plugins; its WooCommerce version powers 22% of the world’s top 1 million e-commerce sites. The main reasons why so many people put WordPress to work are simplicity in usability, its free option and generally low cost, and numerous features, mostly from the open-source community. The term “WordPress” is often used interchangeably when referring to two software variations. There are significant differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org that you’ll want to know before picking the platform for your project. WordPress.org is an open-source content management system, while WordPress.com is a popular blogging platform with basic functionality that can be accessed free of charge.WordPress is available in 196 languages, far more than other competitors.WordPress’s most important features:Simple-to-use editing interface.A forgiving design system that preemptively identifies and notifies users of mistakes.A large number of optional widgets.Online storage for web assets.Hundreds of templates for specific businesses and other uses.Free version option and other modestly priced versions.*Be advised that some coding is required for the upper-level editions.WordPress pricing and monthly plans: Basic: no cost; all others go for between $5 and $100 per month, depending upon features and hosting options.

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An alternative to consider for making a fast and clean-looking site.

Site 123

Site 123 is a rising developer-created website builder with about 5 million users that wants to be the easiest-to-use platform now available for do-it-yourselfers. Of course, lots of services make the same claim, but Site123 deigns to prove their point with an easy-to-use interface and templates. Site 123 is best for building a small, quick website on a premade template, and it has a generous free plan along with straightforward onboarding and web design options. Instead of operating like a traditional drag-and-drop website builder, Site123 has users pick their preferences and customize a curated template based on that niche, which appeals to beginners with no design or development experience.Site 123 does have limited design and technical features and doesn’t offer a lot of customer support. Again, if you’re keeping it simple, these caveats aren’t a problem. Site 123’s most important features:Provides all the basics someone needs to get started.No-frills design and layout promote fast development.An adequate number of easy-to-use templates.Free of charge based on ads.Instead of operating like a traditional drag-and-drop website builder, Site123 has you pick your niche and then customize a curated template based on that niche, which appeals to beginners who have no design or development experience (think DIY-ers who need to create a website ASAP without having any website experience).*Be advised that a basic Site 123 account isn’t optimal for equipping and maintaining a commercial website.Site 123 pricing and monthly plans: Basic service is free of charge; paid plans start at $12.80/month, which includes a free domain for a year, the ability to connect your custom domain, 10GB of storage, 5GB of bandwidth, and the ability to send 100 email messages to your mailing list per month — It also removes the Site123 branding that comes with the free plan.

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Good for beginners, but the free version might be too restrictive for most users.

SimpleSite

SimpleSite certainly lives up to its name, giving its users an easy, straightforward path to building basic websites. SimpleSite emphasizes speed over perfection, which is evident in its simple page editor. If you want creative freedom to try new things and experiment with others, a free SimpleSite won’t be the builder for you. It’s not particularly intuitive; straying from the chosen template can cause problems. If you want to stay on the straight and narrow, you’re fine with SimpleSite.SimpleSite’s most important features:Free version: no-frills design and layout promote fast development.Software guides users through the building process; simply choose a color scheme, add images, title, and domain name, then create a login. This final step automatically publishes your site, which you can then go back and finish editing.SimpleSite is beginner-friendly. It wasn’t always the most intuitive; at times, its simplicity becomes restrictive, making it difficult to do some basic design functions.*Be advised that SimpleSite isn’t optimal for equipping and maintaining a commercial website.SimpleSite pricing and monthly plans: Basic: no cost (includes SimpleSite ads, 15 pages, limited design options, five online store products, mobile-optimized); other options range from $15.49 to $30.49 per month for e-commerce and full-featured personal sites.

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Highly recommended for starting a business site.

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Weebly offers step-by-step guidance on building a new website and maybe the best on this list for e-commerce business owners. Weebly can handle entire payment processes, email marketing, multiple domains, and a long list of other features — though not all of them are available in the free version.As part of the Square product suite, Weebly’s payments are handled by the Square point-of-sale system, so it’s in effect an automated payment process — whether for a pop-up shop or an online store. Not having to worry about the financial underpinnings of a site can be a load lifted off the owner’s shoulders.Weebly’s most important features:Easy customization.Integration with other apps and add-ons.Intuitive and easy to use.Constantly improving and adding new features.Meets standards for security and cookies.It has an auto-save function, so work doesn’t get lost.Many template options to use as a starting point.   Dynamic video background.Built-in image editor.Weebly pricing and monthly plans: Basic: no cost; other options range from $8 to $38 per month for e-commerce and full-featured personal sites.

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Good option for European website makers

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Jimdo has a good set of tools for a person needing a website builder that is super-simple and straightforward — and extra credit if the user is based in Europe (it handles most European languages). Jimdo is not optimal if a user needs any kind of advanced technical features or wants flexibility over specific design changes.With Jimdo, there are two ways of creating your website: Jimdo Creator and Jimdo Dolphin. Jimdo Creator is Jimdo’s main platform, a full-fledged editing interface. Users can add in their own content, resize items, and drag elements into different positions. Jimdo Dolphin is an ADI (artificial design intelligence) package. Answer a few questions about what you want on the site, and Jimdo will create it for you. Both are excellent ways to build a website but focus on very different requirements.Jimdo’s most important attributes:Inexpensive to publish an advertisement-free website.Unlimited storage space on the business plan or higher.Help and support are concise and to the point.Middle of the road in terms of ease of use; some people found it straightforward, while others were left frustrated by Jimdo’s restrictive template design.Jimdo pricing and monthly plans: Basic: no cost; other options range from $9 to $15 per month for e-commerce and full-featured personal sites.

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Visual CMS design is a plus.

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Webflow is another contender for grabbing market share that some of the larger, more well-known web-building tools don’t have. Users have marveled at the ease of creating sites on Webflow, and since everything is linked to CSS-style classes, the designs stay fairly clean compared to other drag ‘n drop / WYSIWYG editors. Some users are sold on the Visual CMS design functionality, which helps design custom-tailed CMSes. The CSS Grid and Flexbox layout options are also a nice aid in designing and aligning elements.Reviewers have noted that the client editor isn’t the most intuitive and makes it hard to edit certain aspects, such as background images.Webflow’s most important attributes:Strong tools for crafting phone and tablet sites.Good web store tools.It offers a customized database.Enables use of custom CSS and HTML code.Strong e-commerce options, with support for digital downloads.Unlimited storage and monthly data transfers with all plans.Webflow pricing and monthly plans: Basic: no cost; other options range from $12 to $36 per month for e-commerce and full-featured personal sites. 

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What are the advantages of using DIY website builders?

Especially for smaller companies and self-employed people, website builders offer great value because you can create your own website within a short time and without great cost. The interface is very intuitive, and programming skills are not necessary. The creation of a blog or online store is also easily possible with many providers.

How long does it take to create a homepage with a website builder?

Thanks to ready-to-use templates (usually sorted by industry), you can quickly create the first draft. Afterwards, modules for texts, image galleries, videos, contact forms, and other elements can be placed on the page and filled with content. In most cases, they can be easily placed in the right position by simply dragging and dropping. How much time you need varies greatly depending on the project, preparation, and maintenance. Some websites go online within five minutes; others take one to two days of work.

How much does it cost to create your own online presence?

Many providers offer their users a permanently free version of their website builder. Compared to the paid ones, however, the free plans come with some restrictions. This means that there may be tools and functions that you cannot use as a free user. In addition, websites created for free have advertising references to the provider both on the homepage and in the domain. If you don’t want this, you should consider upgrading your plan for a monthly fee of about $5 to $40.

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Huawei said on Wednesday it has signed a patent licensing deal with an unnamed supplier of parts to Volkswagen, although reports said it was Luxembourg-based Rolling Wireless. The deal covers 4G connectivity in the vehicles, with Huawei adding it expects 30 million vehicles will end up falling under its patent licences. The Chinese giant said it was its biggest deal with the automotive industry. “As an innovative company, we own a leading patent portfolio for wireless technologies, which creates great value for the automotive industry,” Huawei chief legal officer Song Liuping said. “We are pleased that key players from the automotive industry recognise that value. We believe this license will benefit worldwide consumers with our advanced technology.” Following a clampdown on Huawei from the US, the company has said it would need to diversify in order to reverse a revenue decline. In April, the company reported first quarter sales were down 16.5%, but the result was expected due to Huawei selling off its Honor brand last year. While revenue was down, margins were up thanks to a $600 million patent royalty, and “ongoing efforts to improve quality of operations and management efficiency”, the company said at the time.

“2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu said. “No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably.” Related Coverage More

Samsung on Wednesday said in its earnings guidance it recorded 63 trillion won in sales and 12.5 trillion won in operating profit during the second quarter of 2021.It is an increase of 19% and 53.4%, respectively, from the same time period a year prior. It is also Samsung’s highest operating profit in nearly three years.South Korean analysts said high demand for semiconductors is what propelled the growth. Samsung’s chip business is thought to have contributed over half of the company’s operating income for the quarter.Memory semiconductor prices jumped in the second quarter and demand for them remained solid in PC and servers due to the pandemic, analysts said. Samsung will announce its full earnings report near the end of the month.Meanwhile, Samsung also announced it will be trialling 5G virtualised RAN (vRAN) on 26GHz spectrum in Australia with local telco TPG Telecom.The South Korean tech giant’s vRAN solution will be tested at the telco’s new Innovation Lab in Glebe. The company’s 5G mmWave base stations will also be deployed throughout the suburb.

TPG said the lab would contain an onsite data centre and rooftop mobile site, which would allow its partners to test vRAN, mobile edge computing, private mobile networks, and Open RAN.”We are talking about utilising augmented reality and virtual reality for smart training, low latency remote control for mining and transportation, and smart city applications in collaboration with artificial intelligence and machine learning,” TPG executive general manager for mobile and fixed networks Barry Kezik said.”Having the ability to partner and trial different radio technology with different vendors within the Innovation Lab allows for greater ease in benchmarking performance.”Samsung touted that its 5G vRAN on mmWave has already been deployed in South Korea, Japan and the US. According to Samsung, TPG Telecom’s abundance of mmWave spectrum, thanks to its recent announcement to invest AU$108 million to acquire spectrum in the 26GHz band, and extensive fibre assets and small cells will enable the deployment of the vRAN architecture.Samsung’s network business launched in Australia in April, which will primarily focus on mmWave for 5G.RELATED COVERAGE More

Google Cloud and AT&T on Tuesday are announcing a new set of services that will help businesses build new 5G-powered applications and run them either on-premises or at the network edge. The announcement comes more than a year after Google and AT&T first said they were working together on a portfolio of 5G edge computing solutions for industries like retail, manufacturing and transportation.

With the first service, business customers will be able to build and run applications using Google Cloud capabilities, such as AI, Kubernetes and data analytics. The applications are deployed on-premise using AT&T’s 5G and Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) services. The second service will allow enterprises to deploy applications at Google edge points of presence (POPs), which will be connected to AT&T’s 5G and fiber networks. “We have an opportunity to improve the economics of 5G and edge to help enterprises, via AT&T, to create faster, more compelling experiences at scale,” George Nazi, VP of Google’s telco business, said to ZDNet. “Our goal is to meet these enterprises wherever they are, depending on the applications that they have.”The expanded partnership is the latest example of how wireless carriers and public cloud providers are all jostling for dominance in the new markets opened up by 5G and edge computing. With low-latency connectivity, industries will be able to process more data and develop new, potentially transformative applications. Manufacturers, for example, will be able to deploy AI-powered quality control applications, while healthcare providers could use VR for remote care. Entertainment venues could build smart parking and ticketless entry programs, and retailers could implement video analytics services to help with crowd control or theft prevention.  AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all have their own strategies for winning the market. AT&T is appealing to businesses with a hybrid approach that includes both 5G and fiber. They’re also working with a number of partners besides Google, including IBM, Microsoft, Accenture and Deloitte. Meanwhile, Google, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure have been busy inking deals with CSPs and other players in the 5G ecosystem. Earlier this year, for instance, Google announced a partnership with Intel to develop reference architectures and technologies that will accelerate the deployment of 5G and edge network solutions. Last year, Google published its Global Mobile Edge Cloud strategy for accelerating 5G monetization. Google and AT&T’s new on-premise service amounts to “the 5G network with a fully-managed, multi-access edge compute offering that has all of the Google cloud capabilities,” explained Rasesh Patel, chief product and platform officer for AT&T business. “Enterprises can build and run their applications closer to their end-users, and they have the flexibility of having the data and the compute on-prem, in the customer’s data center, or in the cloud. And it gives them more control over the data security, lower latency and higher bandwidth.”

The service also gives customers access to the full Google ecosystem, including access to more than 200 solutions from more than 35 ISV partners. That also means customers will be able to leverage products from Google and its parent company Alphabet, including Google Maps, the Pixel phone and AR/VR services. The second service essentially brings customers on AT&T’s edge and fiber networks right to Google POPs for lower latency and more seamless customer experiences. It’s launching this year in the Chicago metro area. The two companies have plans to expand the service to at least 15 more zones across major cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, Miami and San Francisco.AT&T and Google are also exploring how to use network APIs to leverage near real-time network information at the Google Cloud edge to optimize applications. The two companies have a joint go-to-market effort and will be tapping their solutions teams to assist different industry verticals. “This is providing the building blocks to deliver the next level of innovation, and it’s not going to be a single purpose thing. It’s innovation that can really fit different industries and in different environments,” Patel said. More

Judging from my inbox, people have a love/hate relationship with Google Chrome, and most can’t even say why they love it. They can remember loving it once.

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The best browsers for privacy

If you’re like most people, you’re probably using Google Chrome as your default browser. It’s hard to fault Google’s record on security and patching but privacy is another matter for the online ad giant.

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But they can rattle off a huge list of reasons why they hate it.And yet they keep using it.While I still think that running the stock browser that comes with your operating system is probably the best option, what I’ve been hearing from users is that they want one browser that works across all platforms. And that’s one of Google Chrome’s strong points.So, what do you do?Must read: Windows 11 chaos, and how copying Apple could have helped Microsoft avoid it

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been testing a browser that you might not have heard of: Brave. Brave is a free and open-source web browser based on the Chromium web browser. So if you’re coming over from Chrome, things are going to seem very familiar. Why should you try Brave? Brave is fast, secure, packed with privacy features, has a built-in ad-blocker, supports most of the Google Chrome extensions available, and there’s even an optional (paid-for premium) VPN. It’s a fully functional browser with everything you’d expect from a modern browser. And let me tell you, it’s good. Really good. Performance is outstanding, and the browser is capable of handling more tabs than we probably should be throwing at a browser, no matter the platform. Page loading speeds must be seen to be believed. It’s the fastest browser that I can remember running, no matter the platform I’m running it on.The privacy features just work straight out of the box, with no need to go futzing about in the settings. While power users love to delve into the settings, the average user wants to do no more than click on the icon and start browsing. If the privacy settings in the browser you are using are default set to off, and they are buried out of sight, there’s a reason for that. With Brave, everything is upfront and easy to use.Battery life on mobile devices is also good, with my laptop getting a good hour of extra runtime. That’s an extra hour I’m getting for free.Battery life on mobile devices is also noticeably better compared to Google Chrome. I also like having one browser for all my different platforms and devices, thanks to Brave Sync. This feature, which is currently in beta, can be enabled to encrypt and synchronize your preferred settings and bookmarks across different devices. And the best part of this is that everything is encrypted, and only you have the power to decrypt it — not even Brave has the keys to decrypt your data!Transitioning from another browser to Brave is also a snap, just as it is with any modern browser. For a while now, I’ve been questioning if there’s a real need for an independent browser, and Brave has removed all my doubts. At a time when users’ personal information has become a currency, it’s good to see a platform take user privacy seriously.At the end of the day, it’s a browser, but it’s a good browser, and after using it extensively for a few weeks now, I recommend it. Highly. More

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Telstra and TPG have announced that users in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Darwin, and Hobart should expect a 4G speed increase of around 10 to 20% thanks to a spectrum restack. The telcos said they defragmented the 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands following different spectrum allocations over the past decade. Telstra said it had pulled a pair of 10MHz allocations into a 20MHz block in six cities. “Larger spectrum blocks are more efficient and mean we can deliver faster mobile network speeds to our customers. Thanks to this project, we have seen average 4G speeds improve in every city where the restack was done by at least 10% and in Canberra and Darwin by 20%,” Telstra group executive of networks and IT Nikos Katinakis said. “We can also carry more traffic on larger spectrum blocks. For example, in Canberra our re-stacked 1800MHz spectrum is carrying approximately 14% more traffic.” Telstra said it was first time a restack had occured without a direction from ACMA. “Ultimately, this is an example of two major telecommunications operators constructively working together to give customers improved services,” TPG Telecom executive general manager for mobile and fixed networks Barry Kezik said. “This process also highlights how industry and the regulator can work together to achieve the most effective use of this valuable spectrum resource for the benefit of customers, and we acknowledge the valuable support of the ACMA throughout the process.”

TPG added the refarming of sprectrum from 4G to 5G would bring further benefits. Separately, Optus announced on Monday it was making its coverage of the Euro 2020 semis and final free to all Australians on Optus Sport.”We recognise that a lot of the country is currently restricted when it comes to going round to friends’ houses or to a venue to watch games together, and we are therefore pleased to provide as many Australians as we can with the opportunity to enjoy the last three tournament games in the comfort of every home,” Optus TV and content head Corin Dimopoulos said.Related Coverage More

A Friday morning outage is quickly turning into a full day outage, with some Optus customers left without mobile or fixed connectivity. “Optus is aware of an outage that may be impacting Optus services. We are aiming to restore these services as a priority,” the telco tweeted at 11:04am AEST on Friday “We thank customers for their patience and will provide an update as soon as possible.” Over three hours later, Optus customers are still waiting for more information. A spokesperson for the company said the outage began at 10:30am AEST, and it was looking into the cause. At the time of writing, the Optus service status page did not return outages at tested addresses, but did report outages across Sydney on mobile. “Sorry, a number of Optus mobile towers in this area are not working,” its notice stated.

“Our network team is working to resolve a transmission issue on the Optus mobile network in this area.” By 4:34pm, Optus said it had restored 4G and 5G services, but 3G was still experiencing issues.On Thursday, Optus claimed to have the fastest 5G upload speeds in Australia when it used millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum to hit 300Mbps. Combining with Nokia, the test utilised both 4G 2100MHz and 5G mmWave spectrum and Casa Systems premises equipment.”Let’s say you have a 500MB video file; on current 4G networks that may take around 1 min 30 seconds to upload which is already fast, but with upload speeds in the vicinity of 300Mbps the same task can be completed in less than 20 seconds,” Optus managing director of Networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said.”For us it’s important that we are connecting customers with technology that improves their lives and increased upload speeds on mmWave 5G is really going to save time for both businesses and consumers as it’s rolled out over the coming months.”The company has six sites using millimetre wave, and 1,300 sites on its 5G network.Update at 4:42pm AEST, July 2: Added Optus update.Related Coverage More

Jan. 6, 2022 is a date that CIOs and other IT leaders need to circle on their calendars. This is the deadline by which non-fixed phone lines will need to comply with the upcoming RAY BAUM’s Act (capitalization is correct). For those not familiar with the details, a few years back an unfortunate death of a young woman in a hotel room led to a new regulation being adopted in her name aimed at improving multi-line telephone systems (MLTS). Kari’s Law, which went into effect last year, eliminates any required prefix when calling 911, such as pressing “9” first to get an outside line. It also mandates that a designated contact (or contacts) within an enterprise be notified when a 911 call has been made. Kari’s Law is named in honor of Kari Hunt, who was killed by her estranged husband in a motel room in Marshall, Texas in 2013.  Ms. Hunt’s 9-year-old daughter tried to call 911 for help four times from the motel room phone, but the call never went through because she did not know that the motel’s phone system required dialing “9” for an outbound line before dialing 911. Congress responded by enacting Kari’s Law in 2018. Kari’s Law requires direct 911 dialing and notification capabilities in multi-line telephone systems, which are typically found in enterprises such as office buildings, campuses, and hotels.Since then, the Federal Communications Commission also has implemented RAY BAUM’s Act, which will have an even greater positive impact on emergency outcomes, even though it may present some challenges during initial implementation. RAY BAUM’s Act requires that a 911 caller’s “dispatchable location” be provided to public safety officers for each emergency call that is made. The dispatchable location includes both a street address and any additional information, such as a floor, suite, quadrant, or room number that is needed to locate the caller within a building. Since the law was first proposed, there have been some changes and, in my discussions with IT leaders, many companies aren’t ready. To get a better understanding of the changes–where customers struggle and what they should do to prepare–I recently interviewed product marketing manager Tricia McConnell of Bandwidth. I’ve discussed this topic with many industry people, but I sought her out because she is one of the most knowledgeable people on this topic. Here is a Q&A with McConnell.What are the recent changes in E911 regulations? The first RAY BAUM’s Act compliance deadline was on Jan. 6 of this year, and it applies to fixed MLTS, interconnected VoIP, telephony, and telephony relay services. Examples of these fixed devices include desktop phones, hard phones for contact center agents, conference room phones, or equipment in use by the deaf and hard-of-hearing. 

[Editor’s note: Hard phones are essentially hardware-based IP phones that exist as a physical device and act similarly to a traditional desk phone. IP hard phones look like phones; these devices provide a handheld receiver that lifts off a base, just like any other telephone.]The second deadline comes into effect on Jan. 6, 2022. It applies to the same telephony services but for non-fixed applications, including softphone platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom Phone, and RingCentral, to name a few. These popular platforms offer flexible, work-from-anywhere collaboration features, but they also create unique challenges when it comes to 911 and regulatory compliance. As we talk with enterprises of varying sizes, the complexity of how to stay compliant with E911 regulations while embracing these new tools can overwhelm them and even cause them to lag behind. Why do so many organizations struggle with RAY BAUM’s Act?Let’s first talk about the requirement for fixed telephony. At a minimum, it requires IT administrators to ensure that they have updated each physical device with a dispatchable location. For a large enterprise with locations around the country and hundreds or maybe even thousands of workers at each location, this is a fairly straightforward but time-consuming process. IT departments should be prepared to audit their phones to be sure the location has been provisioned correctly.  Also, many MLTS systems make use of extensions where each user has not been signed a unique DID. In fact, a single DID (direct inward dialing) service may be allocated to hundreds of phones distributed across several floors or even an entire building. This is important because, in the event of a dropped call, public safety needs to be able to call back the distressed party. When a caller is using an extension, a callback won’t work because the extension value is never passed outside of the MLTS system to public safety.[Editor’s note: Direct inward dialing (DID), also called direct dial-in (DDI) in Europe and Oceania, is a telecommunication service offered by telephone companies to subscribers who operate a private branch exchange (PBX) system. The feature provides service for multiple telephone numbers over one or more analog or digital-physical circuits to the PBX, and transmits the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that a PBX extension is directly accessible for an outside caller, possibly by-passing an auto-attendant.] What many enterprises have done up until now is to provide a street address without the dispatchable location information for each extension. They also may assign floor-level location information to several hundred users that may or may not meet the standard for a “dispatchable location.” It’s this lack of specificity that leaves companies of all shapes and sizes vulnerable in terms of their compliance. What about the upcoming deadline of Jan. 6, 2022? Solving for non-fixed VoIP is even more challenging. It usually requires dynamic location routing solutions and the additional provisioning of network elements, such as WiFi access points, subnets, switches or ports with a dispatchable location. This technique allows an end-user to move around the corporate network. As the user attaches to one of the provisioned network elements, his/her softphone application will capture the updated dispatchable location information. If he/she makes a 911 call, that dispatchable location will be used to route the call and will be conveyed to the 911 call taker. What are some of the solutions that currently support the dynamic requirements for RAY BAUM’s Act?They all work a little differently under the covers, but Dynamic E911 for Microsoft Teams, Zoom Phone’s Nomadic E911 (PDF), and RingCentral’s Nomadic 911 are the most innovative and can support the upcoming RAY BAUM’s Act requirement for non-fixed VoIP. I think of these solutions as the electric vehicles of enterprise voice communications while desk phones are like gas-powered vehicles. Hard phones aren’t going away anytime soon, but we’ll see fewer of them in use over time. What about work-at-home employees?This is obviously a growing area of concern that the rules for RAY BAUM’s Act, adopted by the FCC well before COVID-19, did not fully anticipate. Work-at-home use cases add even more complexity to how an enterprise is able to collect personal current location information when employees work at home with a softphone application. What about using remote work communications while at a Starbucks or the airport? One option is to adopt one of the platforms noted above that offer dynamic or nomadic capabilities. However, if the organization is using traditional on-prem PBXs such as Avaya, Cisco Systems, and others, they can leverage a supplemental solution that recognizes when the user is no longer locally attached to the enterprise network. These tools will prompt off-net users to enter their current location, whether it’s the address of their home, a hotel room, or some other remote location. Ultimately, if a 911 call is made and no location is available, most emergency services providers will route the call to a nationwide call center that will try to determine the location from the caller, then manually transfer the call to the right public safety answering point. Obviously, this is the path of last resort, but it is a safety valve that exists in accordance with industry recommendations and best practices. How precise does a dispatchable location need to be for compliance?This question comes up a lot and, as a non-lawyer, I always point our customers to their attorneys for legal guidance on questions like this. The RAY BAUM’s Act regulations state the dispatchable location contains information “necessary to adequately locate the caller.” Each enterprise may interpret this statement differently and has to make a decision about how specific they want the dispatchable location to be, depending on the unique configuration of their building, their current PBX, and the number of employees and remote workers. Are there any exemptions for either RAY BAUM’s Act or Kari’s Law?Kari’s Law applies to “MLTS that are manufactured, imported, offered for first sale or lease, first sold or leased, or installed after Feb. 16, 2020.” Some enterprises may assume this means they don’t have to comply, but the law goes on to say the enterprise should comply “if the system is able to be configured to provide the notification without an improvement to the hardware or software of the system.” The view here is that if your equipment can be enabled–and most can at this point—-then it should be enabled. Another common area of misunderstanding applies to contact centers. Many enterprises with call centers mistakenly assume that they aren’t responsible for enabling 911 on the user’s device. However, RAY BAUM’s Act does apply to all interconnected VoIP services, including contact centers, that allow for users to make outbound calls (as well as receive calls from customers). This is something that, frankly, we don’t see being discussed or covered thoroughly enough in the industry. [End of Q&A]Final thoughts To paraphrase the great humorist Mark Twain and re-channel one of his most famous lines to that of phone-calling: “Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.” While telephony doesn’t have the same level of sizzle as video or messaging, it’s still one of the top communications channels used across all demographics. In fact, when people want to discuss things that matter, such as their health, financial records or reporting an emergency, phone-calling is the preferred choice. Given the sharp rise in VoIP systems caused by the pandemic, it’s crucial that businesses fully understand E911 regulations and have the systems in place to comply. More