If you read "The LECs didn't provide them with" as "Vonage wasn't willing to pay for, and thus didn't receive", you'd be about right.
As has been repeatedly noted here and elsewhere, there are other, more responsible, VoIP carriers -- e.g. the cable companies' in-house telcos, or Packet8 -- who chose the more responsible, if perhaps less satisfying to shareholders, tack of paying their share of the costs of maintaining the E911 infrastructure rather than playing public- relations and political games as Vonage did instead.
Thor Lancelot Simon snipped-for-privacy@rek.tjls.com
"The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky