There is now a single calling code for the globe, +883, that has recently been created by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). To help businesses benefit from this one number, convenience Voxbone has released the iNum — a single number that enables anyone to establish a local presence anywhere in the world.

 

Voxbone (News - Alert) is making use of the +883 country code and associated banks of direct-inward-dial (DID) numbers.  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.

“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,” explains 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.”

Wholesale voice carriers Arbinet (News - Alert), Belgacom ICS, Level 3 Communications 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.

Voxbone provides iNum numbers for free to carriers and service providers. As the number wholesaler, Voxbone will receive calls to these numbers and deliver them to the appropriate service provider. In this way, it connects incoming calls from PSTN callers as well as calls between different VoIP islands.

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.

 

Ullens described iNum as a natural extension of Voxbone’s role as an online DID warehouse. On Voxbone’s Web site, service providers can obtain — on demand and fully provisioned — local telephone numbers that ring wherever subscribers want them to ring. The company provides local numbers for 5,000 cities in more than 45 countries. Customers include more than 1,200 carriers and service providers worldwide.

“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,” says Ullens. “We see iNum encouraging more people to call globally, enabling business subscribers to have wider interactions with callers from new markets. For carriers, iNum will increase call minutes and generate additional revenue through innovative global services.”

There is a growing list of firms are integrating Voxbone’s iNum +883 service into their offerings. One of them is Mobivox, which has actuated iNum into its voice-activated mobile services platform as part of a new Inbound Communications Service module. These unique value-added services are available immediately to Mobivox service providers and online community partners.

 

The patent-pending Mobivox Mobivox�PL platform enables partners to rapidly deploy and monetize voice-activated person-to-person and person-to-group communications services. For all Mobivox services—including its inbound and outbound Mobile VoIP offerings—end-users simply speak names or commands to initiate, manage and control voice-based communications.

 

“Integrating with Voxbone’s ‘883’ exchange is squarely in line with our strategy to make our full-featured Mobivox�PL platform a source of robust offers that mobile, IP telephony and calling card providers can extend to their customers to generate new sources of revenue and grow user loyalties. “ explains Mobivox President and CEO Peter Diedrich (News - Alert). 

 

End-users will continue to take advantage of the platform’s intuitive and unique voice-user interface, referred to as the Mobivox Voice Assistant, to make the most of the inbound “883” service, including:

 

 

 

 

Earlier this year, Mobivox announced strategic collaborations with Jajah and Unyk to enhance their respective services through Mobivox�PL capabilities.

 

 “Integrating Mobivox�PL with Voxbone’s +883 exchange is the latest example of our company extending the platform’s partner-ready innovative voice-activated range of functionalities to create new value-added service offers,” adds Diedrich.