Vonage agreed to purchase access to elements of the wireless and wireline Enhanced 9-1-1 network from SBC Communications and BellSouth. Vonage announced a similar arrangement with Verizon earlier this month.
The deals enable Vonage to deliver both caller’s location and call back number to emergency services personnel for 9-1-1 calls placed throughout the RBOC territories before the end of the year.
“SBC and BellSouth have really come a long way over just a few short weeks – we now have a good faith agreement to get this done in the marketplace so all of our customers can get E9-1-1, regardless of what number they’re calling from and where. As good corporate citizens and stewards of the E9-1-1 public trust, SBC and BellSouth have agreed to implement an E9-1-1 solution that will serve all customers including those who are mobile and those users on non- local phone numbers,” said Jeffrey A. Citron, Vonage’s CEO. “Fortunately, we have all settled, in principle, to unbundle wireless E9-1-1 elements so VoIP providers like us can implement NENA’s new I2 standard, instead of being restricted to a CLEC for call delivery.”http://www.vonage.com/
- On May 5, Vonage announced an agreement with Verizon to access elements of Verizon’s wireless and wireline Enhanced 9-1-1 network, enabling Vonage to offer its VoIP customers E9-1-1 service. As a result of the deal, Vonage will able to deliver both caller’s location and call back number to emergency services personnel for 911 calls placed throughout Verizon’s territory. Specifically, Verizon’s wholesale group has committed to offer Vonage the following elements on a commercial basis for the deployment of NENA-compatible Enhanced 9-1-1 within Verizon’s 28-state territory: Direct trunking to the more than 100 Verizon-owned selective routers; Provision of wireless components enabling non-local numbers to call 911 – ESRNs (pANIs) and ESQKs (pALIs) ; ALI-steering agreement for Intrado, Vonage’s technology partner.