It's a little more complicated than that. It's not that the phone companies were just being pricks about it. The switching technology used to foward 911 calls to the appropriate switchboards is in place because government regulations tell them that they have to have them. VoIP companies basically wanted access to this system, that they don't incur any costs for or contribute to in any way, for free. I haven't checked, but I'm sure what most of the problem is, from a legal stand point, is who pays for the 911 system. phone companies will say that they incur most of the costs, therefore if VoiP wants to use it, they must pay. VoIP will say that, inevitably the taxpayer foots the bill, so it's general domain, therefore the phone company must open it up for general use.

However this shakes out, the bottom line is that VoIP is not regulated and not secure. There are no guarantees, at any level that service will be up all the time. Those that solely go VoIP take the risk that an emergency does come up, and they have no access to 911.