EDISON, N.J., /PRNewswire/ Vonage, the leading broadband telephony provider today announced it is now offering its subscribers 311 dialing for city information services. Calls dialed to 311 are routed to the public information center in the customer’s area enabling them to receive information such as public transit and garbage collection schedules, as well as tourism and parks and recreation information.

«Vonage is pleased to offer its customers the convenience of 311 dialing for city information services. This is just another example of Vonage answering its customers needs,» stated Jeffrey A. Citron, chairman and CEO of Vonage.

The 311 dialing feature is available at no charge to all customers who have activated their dialing 911 service. Vonage customer access to 311 services is available in 13 markets across the US including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Dallas and Washington DC.

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ATLANTA, /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS — News) announced today that the new terms of the retiree medical benefits plan included in its tentative agreement with the CWA reached on August 7th will result in a change in the calculation of its retiree medical obligation.

The agreement with the CWA contains contractual limits on the company funded portion of retiree medical costs (referred to as «caps»). BellSouth has waived the premiums in excess of the caps during the current and past contract periods and, therefore has not collected contributions from non-management retirees. BellSouth has previously calculated its obligation for non-management retiree medical costs based on the terms of the written agreement with the CWA.

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By Erin Joyce

Call it one step forward in a years-long slog to renegotiate interconnect fees among long distance and local phone service providers -- with the burgeoning growth of voice over IP (VOIP) keeping all parties on their toes.

Nine telecommunications providers have submitted a plan to the Federal Communications Commission that proposes new fees for wireline interconnect Charges, the fees that long distance providers have to pay to connect to local phone networks.

The plan, submitted Monday, is part of the FCC’s new rule-making procedures, now that federal courts have ruled that the old tariff system on phone calls was stifling competition.

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IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hop-on.com, Inc. (OTC: HPON — News) today announced that it has shipped an initial order of its tri-band (900/1800/1900 MHz) Model 1806 GSM handsets to a distributor in Karachi, Pakistan. Located in Southern Asia between India on the east, Iran and Afghanistan on the west and China in the north, Pakistan is a country of 159 million people.

Dan Gannon, Chief Executive Officer of Hop-on commented, «In our efforts to address the various international markets for low cost wireless solutions, Hop-on has been working to establish a global business partner network spanning all five continents and we welcome this distributor in Pakistan as the latest addition to our expanding group of business partners. Pakistan is a country with approximately half the population of the United States in an area slightly less than twice the size of California. With its low wireless penetration rate, there is potentially a significant opportunity to sell low cost handsets in Pakistan and we look forward to working with this customer to serve the Pakistani market.»

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Dial up Internet users getting dinged for big bucks

Crystal Crimi, Staff Writer

DURHAM -- When Mary Elson’s phone bill showed $400 in long distance calls she hadn’t made, she thought Bell Canada had made a mistake.

Unfortunately, the charges were no accident.

The Goodwood resident had been the victim of computer modem hijacking and before she could get the scammers out of her Internet connection, they rang up another $400 in calls to places such as New Zealand, Tokelau, and Sao Tome.

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