http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2005/vonage-voip-911-opt-out.htm
By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist
Tired of state attorney generals threatening lawsuits over its 911
offerings, VoIP provider Vonage Holdings Corp. said it will change its
registration process to make 911 services an opt-out rather than an
opt-in option, according to wire service reports this morning.
Vonage chief executive Jeffrey Citron said the company would change
its registration procedures to the opt-out format "sometime this
summer," as part of an overall revamping of the company's 911 services
implementations.
Vonage is currently facing lawsuits from several states over both the
advertisment and implementation of its 911 services, which some states
claim are misleading. CEO Citron said Vonage's conversations with
the Texas attorney general led him to believe that changing 911 from
opt-in to opt-out was a way to make progress on resolving Texas's
issues with Vonage's publicity material and business practices.
Full story at:
http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/articles/2005/vonage-voip-911-opt-out.htm
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not sure that is going to be an
improvement. At least now, (with opt-in) if a person takes the
messages he receives seriously and makes an effort to get 911 turned
on, as I did, he is going to have at least some working knowledge of
the limitations of the system. The hassle now are those people who
'just assume VOIP works like any other phone'. Most of the time, those
people know from nothing, all of a sudden have an emergency and dial
into 911, find it unavailable then the VOIP carrier catches hell for
it. At least VOIP can now respond, "We _told_ you and you agreed to
our terms."
The people who 'just assume' are still going to be around, but VOIP
really does leave itself open for a lawsuit when they begin to contend
(by making it an opt-out function) that VOIP is 'just like any other
phone', when in fact 911 will possibly be the critical distinction
why it is not. Now the dummies can truthfully say "you never told me".
I hope, for legal reasons, VOIP holds off on the conversion between
opt-in/opt-out until they have so throughly and completely tested it
under stressful conditions that they _know_ it will work for the
largest number of their customers. PAT]
Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 00:38:43 -0400
From: Jack Decker <jack-yahoogroups@withheld_on_request>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Broadvoice Blames Problems on Telecom Carrier
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 24, Issue 210, Message 4 of 17
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http://voxilla.com/voxstory163.html
Business
By CAROLYN SCHUK
for VOXILLA.COM
Significant service outages that BroadVoice customers have been
experiencing for a week is the result of an unresolved 12 month
dispute with one of the provider's carriers, according to a letter
of apology to Broadvoice customers by company President & CEO David
Epstein.
The carrier, though not named by Epstein, is Bermuda-based Global
Crossing.
Beginning on May 6, about 7,000 BroadVoice customers lost all of their
inbound service and experienced interruptions to their outbound
service, the letter states.
The dispute involves the carrier's charges. "Even though BroadVoice
has received bills from the carrier that inflated charges due by over
44% and, in some cases, reflected rates that are 13 times the
contracted rate," says Epstein's letter, "BroadVoice has paid
100% of the undisputed charges."
[...]
Recent reports indicate that other Global Crossing customers,
including several VoIP providers, have complained about unusually high
charges from the company for international call termination and other
services.
Full story at:
http://voxilla.com/voxstory163.html
Jack Decker (