mobloc8

From Engadget.

Vonage is being sued for deceptive trade practices by the Texas state attorney general because their VoIP service has 911 calling disabled by default, and doesn’t make it clear enough that it needs to be activated by the purchaser.

This case is a flow-on from the recent shooting incident where a girl tried to call 911 after her parents were shot during a home invasion, but her call didn’t go through because the family had a Vonage VoIP phone without 911 calling enabled. Her parents survived the attack, luckily.

Full details of the suit are posted at the Texas Attorney General web site.

It’s a thorny issue, but more work needs to be done to get support for VoIP calls and tracing for 911 emergency services.

More coverage from the LA Times.

What are your thoughts? Is Vonage in the wrong? Are they being deceptive, or are their customer warnings and information adequate?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2005 at 12:22 am and is filed under E911, Texas, VoIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.