Vonage will spend $10 million to start providing 911-style services for its customers, partly by using Verizon's infrastructure to connect callers with emergency dispatchers, the VoIP provider announced Wednesday.
The investment is Vonage's first substantial attempt to close the company's emergency calling gap. The cash is a relatively low price to address a shortcoming that has become a publicity nightmare for the company, which has spent tens of millions of dollars to market VoIP service.
Vonage calls the investment a major undertaking, describing the plan as 'the first domino to fall' in a plan to offer emergency services nationwide. Vonage and Verizon will implement the system over the next six months.
For now, the Verizon contract includes emergency service access in Verizon's footprint. A Vonage call will be routed over the Verizon network to connect to the Public Safety Answering Point, or PSAP. The
911 operator is then able to access a database of the caller's personal information due to a unique key encoded in the call.Full story at: