Phone number provider Voxbone has officially launched iNum, a global phone telephone number system, leveraging the ITU's creation of the +883 country code and VoIP technology to provide local number access with international reach. Current use of the numbers is in "private beta," says the company.
Voxbone has teamed up with a laundry list of VoIP players to utilize the new code, including service providers Iotum, Jajah, Mobivox, Gizmo5, Ribbit, Truphone, Rebtel, Voipbuster and Voipuser. Wholesale voice carriers Arbinet, Belgacom ICS, Level 3 Communications and Stealth's Voice Peering Fabric are already routing +883 calls today.
Basically, the 883 country code works like any other international country codes, just as 44 refers to the United Kingdom and 1 to the United States. Voxbox provides iNum numbers for free to carriers and service providers. As the wholesaler, Voxbone will receive calls to these numbers and deliver them to the appropriate service provider, connecting incoming PSTN calls as well as native VoIP calls.
Most participating carriers are expected to deliver calls to iNum numbers free of charge to their users, providing a form of free connectivity between their networks and remote networks.
For more:
- MarketWatch carries the Voxbone iNum press release [1].
Related article
+883 world numbers on offer - FierceVoIP [2]
Links:
[1] http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Voxbone-Announces-iNum-Internets-First/story.aspx?guid=%7bE91BD0CF-1053-4194-93BC-8D456215C97A%7d
[2] http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/883-world-numbers-on-offer/2008-03-13