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TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Attorney General's office has reached an agreement with Vonage requiring the nation's largest provider of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service to change its procedures so customers signing up for 911 emergency services will be informed of differences between how Vonage and standard phone companies provide those services. The 911 services will now be offered to customers automatically when they sign up with Vonage and provide an address for the service. The company will also begin providing more information that will help local emergency agencies locate and assist Vonage customers in need.
Florida and five other states began investigating Vonage in May 2005 after they received consumer complaints about the company's emergency dialing procedures, which are different than traditional 911 procedures because VoIP service uses the internet, rather than standard telephone lines, to send and receive calls. The agreement signed today addresses the company's alleged failure to properly inform customers about the steps that had to be taken to activate the 911 feature. Prior to the agreement, consumers who had not activated the service but attempted to dial 911 during an emergency would receive a recorded message informing them that their 911 service had not been activated. Even if the consumer had activated the emergency feature, Vonage's 911 service failed to transmit the caller's telephone number and location information to emergency operators, a fact the company did not disclose to consumers.
Other problems with the 911 feature included a procedure that directed Vonage customers' calls to an administrative line rather than directly to emergency response personnel through the local 911 network. In some places, these administrative lines were answered only during regular business hours or were answered by an automated answering service. Despite these limitations, Vonage promoted its 911 dialing capability and advertised the service as a "replacement" for traditional phone service.
As part of the agreement, the 911 feature will be automatically activated when a customer signs up as soon as the customer provides a physical address. This address will be transmitted to emergency response personnel as the address of the caller. Vonage must inform consumers that because the service is portable, users must update their address every time they move and they should be aware that there may be a delay in updating the information. Vonage must also disclose other limitations of the 911 service, including the fact that a consumer will not have access to 911 during power outages or if the consumer's broadband connection is lost.
More information about Florida's enhanced 911 system is available at: http://www.state.fl.us/dms/e911/index.html.
Consumers who sign up for Vonage service online will now see a full disclosure of the 911 limitations. Prospective customers will have to indicate that they understand the limitations and accept the differences between Vonage and traditional phone access to 911 services. Vonage has agreed to reimburse the taxpayers of Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas for the costs of the states' investigation. 12-15-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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