I received this release today and was a\nbit surprised as AT&T has been super-quiet regarding their CallVantage\nservice since their announcement of of the SBX acquistion. While Vonage has been\ninvesting in customer acquisition with million dollar marketing budgets, AT&T\nhas really slowed the marketing spending to a trickle. I can’t recall the last\npromotion I saw for the service so using the word trickle actually givs the company the benefit of the doubt.
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\nMany in the industry were quietly predicting the demise of the service\naltogether. I take this announcement as a sign that AT&T is still committed\nto providing VoIP. Of course implementing E911 is easier for AT&T than for\nmany smaller companies because of their heritage and relationships in the industry.

\nWhat is confusing to me is that if the company is going to keep CallVantage\ngoing, why aren’t they marketing more aggressively? A while back it was a two horse race between Vonage and AT&T.\nVonage is the clear winner now and AT&T is so far behind that it will take\nimmense spending to catch up. The field is wide open for a strong number two VoIP\nprovider. Who will it be. I wonder.
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\nAT&T Aggressively Rolling Out VoIP E-9-1-1 Service
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\nFOR RELEASE: MONDAY, JULY 11, 2005
\nBEDMINSTER, N.J. – AT&T announced today that it has begun introducing\nEnhanced 9-1-1 service (E-911) to its AT&T CallVantage^® Service\nusers in a phased deployment to be largely completed later this Summer.
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\nE-911 service delivers a caller’s name, telephone number and service address\ndirectly to the console of the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP)\nin the event of an emergency.
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\n“AT&T is proud to be making good on its commitment to deliver an E-911\nsolution to our AT&T CallVantage subscribers,” said Cathy Martine, AT&T\nsenior vice president for Internet Telephony. “It has long been AT&T’s\nheritage to serve the nation’s public safety needs and the introduction of\nE-911 for many of our VoIP users is the culmination of a lot of hard work.”
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\nAT&T began provisioning eligible new AT&T CallVantage Service\nsubscribers with E-911 capabilities on a phased, market-by-market approach this\npast April. That means in the service areas where the company has installed and\ntested the infrastructure required to support E-911, eligible new subscribers\nare automatically receiving the enhanced service when activating their\naccounts.
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\nExisting AT&T CallVantage Service users in those same markets whose\naccounts are eligible will be provisioned with E-911 service automatically by\nmid-summer. To date, the company has migrated tens of thousands of lines\nsuccessfully across the nation.
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\nWhen the migration is complete, customers will receive notification from the\ncompany confirming they have been provisioned with E-911.
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\nExceptions would be those subscribers who have selected “out-of-area” telephone\nnumbers as their primary VoIP lines. For example, if a New Jersey resident chose a telephone number\nin another part of the state, or in another state, he or she would not qualify\nfor E-911 service and would remain on AT&T’s 911 Alternative Emergency\nDialing service until the company is prepared to implement an “out-of-area”\nE-911 solution.
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\nAT&T is working with industry members, commercial\npartners and public safety officials to rapidly expand these emergency dialing\ncapabilities in an attempt to provision all AT&T CallVantage subscribers\nwith E-911 access as quickly as possible.
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\nIn a similar manner, customers who travel with their telephone adapters are\ncautioned to maintain an alternate means of accessing emergency services. While\nAT&T enables customers to update their service address, in such instances\ncustomers may be better served by using a hotel or other local phone to place\nan emergency call until real-time updates are made possible.
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\nAT&T CallVantage Service subscribers can determine their account status by\nlogging on to their personal Web portal and visiting the Account Management\n& Settings page where they can review the emergency service type they are\ncurrently subscribed to. All users are urged to proactively check their 911\nstatus online, read their 911 notification letters and not to place test calls\nto 911 as this creates an unnecessary burden on the nation’s emergency calling\nsystem.
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\nIn the interest of public safety, AT&T reminds customers that VoIP E-911\ndoes not work if there is an outage in electrical power or broadband service.
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\nIntroduced in late March 2004, AT&T CallVantage works\nwith a customer's broadband connection to provide a complete calling\nsolution with unlimited local and long-distance domestic calling, including\ncalls to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, unlimited calling to Canada,\ndiscount rates for international calling, and a suite of advanced features for\n\$29.99 a month.
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\nUnder its AT&T CallVantage Local Plan, customers receive unlimited local\ncalling and access to the entire AT&T CallVantage Service advanced feature\nset for \$19.99 per month. All local toll and long distance calling and feature\nuse in the U.S. and to Canada will be\nbilled at \$0.04 a minute.
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\nTo learn more about AT&T CallVantage Service, consumers can visit http://www.CallVantage.com or visit one of its valued retailers.
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