Ofcom is launching an own-initiative investigation into Vonage, after the voice over IP operator self reported to Ofcom about an incident that affected emergency calls on its network between 23rd October 2023 and 3rd November 2023.
The investigation is based on whether Vonage met its obligations under General Condition A3.2(b) (GC A3.2(b)) and sections 105A, 105C and 105K of the Communications Act 2003. These govern the need for communications providers to support emergency calls at all times and how a provider reacts to a security incident affecting its service. Section 105K requires providers to inform Ofcom of any security compromise that may affect the operation of the network or service.
This is not the first incident affecting Vonage, there was a £25,400 fine from Ofcom back in 2018 for disruption to emergency service access, though in that case, it looks like a call routing change was behind the problems.
Issues at Vonage in no way imply that other voice-over broadband (Digital Voice or Voice over IP) will have identical issues. The issue is that as old PSTN services are removed, whereas people would invariably have had one old copper line, their VoIP line and a mobile the redundancy is less since the situation will be VoIP line and mobile. In the case of widespread emergencies like flooding and storm damage mobile networks have sometimes proven to be less reliable than old copper telephone lines due to power requirements.
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I received a flyer recently from a firm supplying personal alarms for the elderly which states quite clearly that their alarms do not rely on a telephone landline. A good opportunity methinks for them to work with the telcos to supply replacement alarms ahead of the PSTN closure.
Quote : “whereas people would invariably have had one old copper line, their VoIP line and a mobile the redundancy is less since the situation will be VoIP line and mobile.”
We are on an “old copper line”. PSTN may be no more but the aforesaid “old copper line” is still our connection to the world for our broadband and our telephone. We have never had a separate VOIP line. We do have a BT Hybrid Hub which worked surprisingly well when our broadband went down recently, but it did not support the telephone via broadband service, so we were phoneless for 10 days.