TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Texas: Vonage 911 Is a Joke

Texas: Vonage 911 Is a Joke

Jack Decker (jack-yahoogroups@withheld)
Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:36:40 -0500

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=70779

Vonage Holdings Corp. says it intends to quickly settle its legal
tangle with the State of Texas and its Attorney General, Greg Abbott.

Or maybe it will fight back.

"Yes, we are going to try to settle it," says Brooke Schulz, Vonage's
VP of corporate relations. "We are going to sit down with them and try
to reach an agreement that is favorable for everybody. Whether we
settle or defend, they are both ways of settling."

Background: The Texas Attorney General announced this week that it is
suing Vonage, claiming that the VOIP provider is misrepresenting its
service as a real phone service -- allegedly Vonage implies that
dialing 911 from one of its lines would yield the same results as
would using a phone connected to the PSTN.

The lawsuit stems from an incident in Houston when a teenage girl had
to run to a neighbor's house to call 911 while her parents were
assaulted and shot during a robbery. The family were Vonage customers,
but their phone was useless as they didn't properly activate Vonage's
911 service.

But it's not as if they weren't warned, Vonage says.

"There are a lot of disclosures we make to our customers about E911,"
Schulz says. "During the subscription process there are several
reminders that our 911 service is different and that there is a need
for the customer to activate it."

Full story at:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=lightreading&doc_id=70779

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: telcotech: "Re: Texas Sues Vonage Over 911 Problem"
Go to Previous message: Jack Decker: "Citron: Some Bills Are 'Weirdly Weird'"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page