Business VoIP Featured Article

8x8 to Offer Voxbone's Virtual Phone Service for Emergency Calling

February 13, 2015

By Casey Houser, Contributing Writer

Regulation in the European Union that instructs telecoms on how to handle emergency calls states that they must provide end users with the ability to dial 112 (the equivalent to 911 in the U.S.). What this has meant for 8x8 Inc., a supplier of private branch exchange services, was that its European clients needed to hold on to a PSTN line only to handle the function of emergency calling.


The latest announcement from Voxbone, a provider of virtual local phone numbers, says that it will now handle the routing of 8x8's 112 calls so 8x8 can drop the landline requirement for its enterprise customers. Voxbone will offer its VoxOUT service to handle those calls in the cloud. Mehdi Salour, the senior vice president of network operations and support at 8x8, said in Voxbone's announcement that his company's use of VoxOUT will benefit all parties involved.

“Expanding our use of Voxbone’s services to include VoxOUT is a best of all worlds scenario for our customers, since they can now cut the cord with the local telephone network, and move their entire enterprise telephony and emergency services to the cloud,” Salour said.

The addition of VoxOUT to 8x8's portfolio means that it can avoid the costly procedure of equipping its customers with VoIP-to-PSTN gateways and allow their cloud-based PBX systems to handle emergency calls natively.

Voxbone CEO Itay Rosenfeld said that, when 8x8's customers were faced with the decision to hold two separate phone lines rather than one, some of them would opt out of providing 112 calling at all. It simply would not be possible in their enterprises to dial out to emergency services. For many readers here, that choice sounds like a poor one; nevertheless, companies would likely make that choice with costs in mind. Even given the possible legal ramifications for not providing 112 access, enterprises could save money in the short term if they chose only to use a cloud-based PBX. Now, they will not have to make that dangerous choice because emergency calling will work in their 8x8 PBX services without additional hassle.

8x8 offers VoxOUT at a cost that it says is much lower than its competition. It also does not require additional setup on the part of enterprises. This ease of use should get any defectors to move away from a mindset that rationalizes the cost-saving measure of ditching 112 and toward the mindset that reaches for a simple cloud-based product that can keep their employees safe.




Edited by Alisen Downey

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

HOME
READ THE NEXTIVA PARTNER BROCHURE


Key Benefits

  Unlimited Calling & Faxing
  Number Portability
  Auto Attendant
  Voicemail-to-Email
  Instant Conference Calls
  HD Voice Quality



LEARN MORE