Vonage sued over 911 Emergency Service functionality on their VoIP Phones

Vonage sued over 911 Emergency Service functionality on their VoIP Phones

Vonage happens to be the America’s biggest provider of VoIP based telephony services. They serve around half a million customers all around the world. However, the point that the technology is still in its developmental stage means that there are still some glitches they need to sort out before they can actually compete with the traditional phone companies.

The problem arises in the way VoIP based telephone operators are able to access the traditional 911 system maintained by local telephone companies. These systems not only have to carry the voice data but also the details about the location of the caller. This makes it difficult for VoIP service providers to replicate the services unless they are in agreements with telephone companies.

Vonage as a result tell their customers to activate a 911 service on their Vonage VoIP phones. This service directs the 911 calls to the administrative telephone lines in the nearest emergency center. This is not quite equivalent to the routine 911 calls as it is a low priority service and can result in unanswered calls.

This unclear status has resulted in the Texas attorney general filing a lawsuit over the company blaming them of lack of consumer awareness about the lack of functionality of their phones when it comes to the 911 emergency services. The lawsuit demands that the company stop claiming that they offers 911 calling and make more efforts into making the consumer aware of the steps they need to take to reach the emergency services.

In addition, the lawsuit also demands that every violation of the rule should cost Vonage around USD 20,000 in damages.