Voxbone Intros Internet's First Global 'Country Code'

Voxbone (News - Alert), a provider of local telephone numbers to communications services providers and businesses worldwide, has introduced iNum— one global telephone number that enables anyone to establish a local presence anywhere in the world. The company is making use of the +883 “country code,” newly created by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to create a global country code and associated banks of direct-inward-dial (DID) numbers.

 

“iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens (News - Alert), CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people—whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.”

 

Among wholesale voice carriers, Arbinet, Belgacom ICS, Level 3 Communications (News - Alert) and Stealth’s Voice Peering Fabric are already routing +883 calls. Since recognizing the new country code requires an update to the switch routing tables of all wholesalers, international carriers and retail providers, +883 calls must traverse participating carriers’ networks to connect.

 

To create a number with “local” PSTN access around the world, Voxbone worked with the ITU to establish the 883 country code, in the same way that 44 is the country code that refers internationally to the United Kingdom and 1 to the United States.

Some iNum participating carriers will resell iNum numbers to their customers so they can receive calls; other participants will merely route (terminate) calls to the new numbers. Most participating carriers will even deliver calls to iNum numbers free of charge to their users, effectively providing free connectivity between their network and remote networks.

“Customers and prospects who see an advertised iNum telephone number that costs little or nothing to dial will be just as inclined to call an international business as they would any business physically located nearby or in-country,” said Ullens. “We see iNum encouraging more people to call globally, enabling business subscribers to have wider interactions with callers from new markets.”