It's the last barrier to a VoIP surge in the telephony space. It's the wall between VoIP as a dominant player or a fringe technology. It's E911. Face it, solve it, and lead the VoIP category. Ignore it and fail.

At this year's Spring VON, S5 Wireless Inc. is announcing the L-Chip, a fully scaleable E911 solution for VoIP communications. The company has developed a highly reliable and inexpensive solution that will locate a 911 call from any VoIP system. Whether the call comes from indoors or out, in a 50-story high-rise or from inside a shopping mall complex, S5's L-Chip technology will capture the 911 caller's location and transmit the location information to the nearest public safety answering point.

"Our L-Chip technology will surprise people at this year's VON with its versatility and accuracy," said Ken Arneson, Vice President for S5. "We've developed this solution with the idea that almost isn't nearly good enough when locating a person in distress. The L-Chip technology provides accurate, pinpoint location, inside or out, in life or death situations."

The new system was recently demonstrated in a real world setting as part of a proof-of-concept test in King County Washington in conjunction with other network service providers. The test successfully determined that the L-Chip could deliver the proper location information captured during a live E911 call made from a VoIP network to the appropriate public safety answering point.

"We've created a simple, powerful, inexpensive solution that can scale over any existing technology and proved its effectiveness in real time demonstrations," said Arneson.

S5's chip is a 5X5 millimeter device that costs less than a dollar. Placed in any VoIP system, the chip provides dependable and powerful emergency functionality. With extraordinarily long battery life, the L-Chip emits a powerful emergency signal when a user makes an emergency 911 call. What sets the L-Chip apart from other systems is its innovation, compact size and low cost. It can reliably locate and transfer emergency information inside a building our out without using GPS technology.

The S5 team includes deep expertise in E911 solutions in the wireless arena. Ken Arneson, former CEO of Xypoint, developed solutions enabling wireless carriers to meet the 1996 FCC mandate for wireless E911. With S5, he is leveraging his deep roots in helping wireless carriers meet the FCC E911 mandates to create solutions that work in an IP environment.

"We created a new category defining wireless E911 technology," Arneson said. "The L-Chip is the breakthrough product that solves the VoIP E911 roadblock. This truly delivers E911 location in an IP world."