Vonage Loses Appeal; Verizon Owed $120 Million

Billosaur writes "Things do not look good for Vonage. Yesterday, they lost their request for reconsideration of their settlement with Verizon. This means Vonage owes Verizon $120 million to end the patent lawsuit filed against them. The costs associated with defending the case have cut into Vonage's bottom line, and despite attempts to cut costs by laying off 10% of their workforce, they may be unable to make a payment against their debt come December. According to the settlement, Vonage will pay $117.5 million to Verizon and another $2.5 million dollars to charity. Vonage's shares have dropped 87% since their IPO, now hovering around $1.50 per share."

Comments

I've Got Their Number

[Doc Ruby]

So will I be able to buy my Vonage phone#, that they've refused to let me port to my own SIP server, when they have the firesale? Or will they sell me to Verizon to pay for their patent infringement?

Re:I've Got Their Number

[lzed]

What do you mean when you say they refused to let you port your number to "my own SIP server"? Was your SIP server a Class 5 Softswitch connected to the SS7 network? Have you registered yourself as a CLEC and have the ability to have other carries TCAP query an LNP database to route to your LRN? Do you know how Local Number Portability works in the United States? If this is an Asterisk box that would be funny.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Doc Ruby]

No, actually it's a SIP provider I'm paying to host some other DIDs that I did either port or just buy (as portable) to put on it. They're running some Avaya equipment, and some Asterisk servers. But it could be my own Asterisk server, if I wanted. That's how LNP is supposed to work: all you're supposed to need is a phone number on a phone, and put in a request to port it to another carrier.

So what? Who cares? What the hell is the difference? Verizon had no problem porting some numbers to my preferred provider, nor did some other telcos, like Sprint, from whom I first got the number. Vonage had a problem.

So what does your buzzword complaint have to do with anything? This is a question merely of whether Vonage will let me port a number, the way other telcos do, the way LNP is supposed to work. If anything, you should throw your buzzwords at Vonage, instead of acting like you're some kind of bigshot. All it does is make you look like you don't understand LNP.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Vancorps]

Actually it looks like you don't understand it. Just because it's SIP doesn't mean calls can magically get routed to it, you still have to pay a provider to route it for you. That is what the parent was getting at. It takes a lot more than just an Asterisk server to route DIDs. In other words, you have to be a CLEC to get numbers ported to you.

How would Vonage port your number to your Asterisk server? Surely you must have a POTS line, that's all Vonage has on their end along with an Internet connection of course. If you have a POTS line then you can port your number to the POTS provider no problem. Of course take your pick, PRI, ISDN, whatever for a phone network connection.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Z00L00K]

The real question is: All those Vonage-locked boxes - can they be unlocked and re-used to some other service or your local Asterisk? Will Linksys/Cisco provide a tool for that, or can it be done by some other means? Maybe all Vonage customers shall write to them to tell them that "In order to protect my assets I request that you provide me with means to unlock my device".

Anyway - even if Vonage wouldn't be my choice (I'm using Cellip) the whole case looks really bad when it comes to customer advantage. It looks to me that Verizon is cutting the competition in a way that's at least morally blind.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Doc Ruby]

Well, Verizon doesn't exist on a moral plane. It's a corporation, not a person. It's been illegally spying on the entire country, along with its competition (probably including Vonage), and has over a century of other "moral" crimes.

The ATAs, though, don't belong to the customers. They're free from Vonage. If Vonage dies, those locked ATAs will be a waste, but not a cost to the customer (except maybe recycling, unless Vonage pays for that - as they should, because it's Vonage's property they're discarding).

The phone#, though, is a major cost if lost. Which is exactly why we have the elaborate Local Number Portability system. I bet Vonage is exempt, or will act like it, on their typical scam basis that "we're an info service, not a phone company", which is the basis they used to keep their phone#s, which helped them keep customers. Probably Vonage will sell the phone#s, as several million of them is a substantial asset, especially in popular places like UK, NYC and other large cities with "brand name" area/country codes. But probably in bulk, to some other telco - like Verizon. Which could indeed be a way for Vonage to "help" their customers keep service, if Vonage dies.

Which would be a huge win for Verizon. Though stranding them all would be a bigger strategic win for Verizon: scaring the whole market into avoiding "VoIP", even when it's a big, well funded startup that works technically for years. That sounds like Verizon's plan all along.

Like I said, not moral. Any corporation sufficiently amoral is indistinguishable from evil.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Doc Ruby]

No, there are many tiny CLECs around the world which can do the routing. I'm talking about porting the number to my own termination, just like I did the others, and just like I would port, say, my Sprint mobile# to my Verizon phone, which would get routed by Verizon rather than by Sprint.

I have SIP over my broadband. Which is exactly the same scenario.

These objections are all BS. I want to port my Vonage number out of Vonage, I have the technical equipment available to do it, but Vonage refuses, because "I dont' own the phone#, I just rent it from Vonage". I understand Vonage being grabby with a valuable (in bulk) asset like my phone#, but Slashdotters insisting the same is just lying.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[shakah]

The phone#, though, is a major cost if lost. Which is exactly why we have the elaborate Local Number Portability system. I bet Vonage is exempt, or will act like it, on their typical scam basis that "we're an info service, not a phone company", which is the basis they used to keep their phone#s, which helped them keep customers. Probably Vonage will sell the phone#s, as several million of them is a substantial asset, especially in popular places like UK, NYC and other large cities with "brand name" area/country codes. But probably in bulk, to some other telco - like Verizon. Which could indeed be a way for Vonage to "help" their customers keep service, if Vonage dies.

At least in the US, Vonage doesn't "own" the TNs. If they go out of business (or, for that matter, lose most of their customers) the number blocks would get returned to the pool and would be assigned to another carrier as demand requires.

Judging from this and your previous posts, it looks like you have a lot of reading to do if you really want to understand the POTS infrastructure.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Doc Ruby]

Actually, I do understand the POTS architecture and the PSTN pretty well - though of course there's always more to learn. Maybe you just don't understand my posts.

What I'd like to know, since you seem to know more about LNP, is whether Vonage can sell its blocks of termination numbers to another telco, like maybe Verizon. That seems more likely than Vonage just letting such a valuable asset go without cashing in.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[lzed]

My point is that you would be porting the number from the donor switch to another provider's class 5 switch not to your personal SIP server. Weather you are connected to your carrier via SIP, H323 or ISDN is irrelevant. This issue is between your current carrier and the previous carrier who has the number ported in. In that respect not all carriers are created equal. I could start up a phone company tomorrow and get a block of numbers from an ILEC to sell telephone service. My agreement with the ILEC may be setup that I will not ask them to port these numbers out and retain the large block contiguous. This makes life easier for the ILEC and cheaper for me to rent them. That is a large difference from a carrier who is a CLEC/ILEC participating in LNP and 911 routing directly. Now if this number was ported into a carrier, as you stated in a follow up, it should certainly be able to be ported back out. However, this depends on if a provider has the agreements setup with the people who are actually porting in the number, which may or may not be the same people who are selling you the end customer service, and the new carrier is within the bounds of LNP requirements including existing in the same rate center and so on. The core point I was trying to make is that you cannot port a number to an Asterisk box or any other PBX for that matter. However, you can port it to a carrier who provides you a SIP subscriber termination or SIP trunk or H323 trunk or ISDN trunk which may go to an Asterisk box or personal PBX. Also bringing up mobile phones is irrelevant as those blocks are handled by mobile number portability and do not apply here.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[Vancorps]

Thank you for clarifying that for the parent. It looks like that person was confusing a PBX for a switch. Connections can't magically go from SIP to POTS, there has to be conversion somewhere and if he's running an Asterisk server then his connection comes from a Dialogic board connected to the POTS line or through a SIP connection to another provider doing the same thing. The POTS line still has to be provided unless you get yourself a switch and then become a CLEC.

Re:I've Got Their Number

[shakah]

My understanding is that Vonage does not own the TNs, so there is no valuable asset for them to "let go" or "cash in".

AFAIK, the gist of the process is that LECs request blocks of TNs from a regulatory body (NANPA or the FCC?) along with justification of why they need the TNs. Further, on a quarterly basis the LECs have to justify their retention of previously-allocated blocks by reporting on TN usage (e.g. those in service, aging, etc.). Also, as service areas grow TNs are added (through allocation of unused blocks, creation/splitting of area codes, etc.) so there really isn't a fixed supply of numbers to be fought over (or bid up in price).

As for LNP, I understand it as a "pull" process initiated by the subscriber, e.g. if you're currently a Verizon subscriber and want to port to Sprint, you'd contact Sprint and authorize them to port your number from Verizon and they'd take it from there (here's a so-so Wikipedia article on the topic). I'm not clear on the financial aspects of this, though -- my weak guess is that in that case Sprint would pay a one-time fee to Verizon for the port, along with a nominal monthly recurring cost (MRC) for continued use of the ported number (not sure if this is capped by regulation, how much MRC Verizon pays to the regulatory body for continued use of TN, etc.).

and who woulda thunk it...

[Bananatree3]

as Vonage was going IPO it would come burning down like a flamin' meteorite.

I just hope the commercials go away

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably their TV campaign will dry up?

Re:I just hope the commercials go away

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it just changes to:
"Boo hoo, boo hoo hoo..."

Re:I just hope the commercials go away

[DaedalusHKX]

Or you could do the SANE thing and stop watching the boob tube...

patent reform

[timmarhy]

It just goes to show this kind of patent madness hurts everyone. this horse shit needs to end.

Re:patent reform

[dynamicdesign]

So I'm confused why can't companies sue Verizon or AT&T for making customers pay $50/month for unlimited data plans when you don't even use their respective networks while using a phone that has built in WiFi capabilities?

What patent did Vonage infringe upon?

[Anonymous Coward]

What patent did Vonage infringe upon?

Everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't hurt Verizon.

I am sure they would disagree that it needs to end.

And they have a much louder voice than you.

Re:Everyone?

[Metaphorically]

Well if you consider Verizon the business entity then I guess that's true. However one could argue that Verizon is really not an individual but a bunch of people and those people would be better served by this horseshit ending.

Re:Everyone?

[bzipitidoo]

Fixed it for you:

This time it didn't hurt Verizon. Yet.

Next time, Verizon might be the losing defendant. That is, if they haven't provoked such a severe backlash that they're no longer around.

Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[CrazyJim1]

Dibs on patenting the wheel.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Shados]

OooO, I can patent a way to create an oxygen related reaction to generate high levels of light and heat!!!

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[corychristison]

Dibs on patenting the wheel.

That's fine with me, I call the molecule! I now expect payment of $0.01 for every molecule manufactured, used, sold, or distributed.

</badjoke>

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[middlemen]

This was on today's Engrish. Mixes prior "art" and patents.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I've got dibs on the electron. Use it, and you'll only have to pay a low usage fee of $.01. All uses covered, and I believe the gentleman who patented the molecule is infringing upon my patent. You'll be hearing from my lawyer sir!

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[halcyon1234]

Yeah? Well, I call dibs on the process of changing energy states and levels. What's that your electrons are doing, hrmm? Money, please!

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[NinjaTariq]

I call Energy, anyone existing or otherwise after the big bang is infringing on my copyright...

But since i am not like those folks at Verizon, AT&T or sprint, I give you all permission to use my copyright without any fees, as long as you give credit to me.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[xENoLocO]

damnit...
... for real?

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Thats not fair! By observing them, you've changed their states! Tampering with evidence in the court of law is a serious offense mister.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[The New Andy]

Too slow

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[dgatwood]

I hereby declare a patent with the following claims:

1. Negatively charged particles, hereafter referred to as "electrons".
2. Positively charged particles, hereafter referred to as "protons".
3. Neutrally charged particles, hereafter referred to as "neutrons".
4. The agglomeration of (2) and (3) into a cohesive body, hereafter known as a nucleus.
5. The placement of (1) in a cloud-like orbit around (4).

I think that sums it up nicely.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Chandon Seldon]

Not only is their prior art in my patent (an oxygen related reaction used to generate energy), but you're infringing on my patent by breathing. So either pay up or stop.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[tubapro12]

I hereby declare a patent with the following claims:

1. Negatively charged particles, hereafter referred to as "antiproton".
2. Positively charged particles, hereafter referred to as "positrons".
3. Neutrally charged particles, hereafter referred to as "antineutrons".
4. The agglomeration of (2) and (3) into a cohesive body, hereafter known as a nucleus.
5. The placement of (1) in a cloud-like orbit around (4).

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Chandon Seldon]

The implications of that are hilarious.

(The concept of energy, required for all the components involved in making this post, is the property of NinjaTariq, used with permission.)

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[JK_the_Slacker]

That's okay, I'm patenting trolling on Slashdot.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[quanticle]

I'm sorry, but I've already patented a method of generating oxygen using carbon dioxide and sunlight, so you'll have to pay me for the oxygen that your patent uses.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[curmudgeous]

Dibs on patenting the wheel.

Too late:

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/australia.wheel/

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Shados]

Lets make a cross-patent agreement, since I've myself already patented a way to use large bodies of hydrogen, helium and other elements in a nuclear fusion reaction out of the earth's orbit to fuel other chemical reactions.

Man this could go on for a bit.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[stevenvi]

I have a patent on a method of attracting two large bodies in a magnitude proportional to their respective masses and distance squared.

You are all in violation of this, actually, but unfortunately my interaction requires large masses for noticeable effects, so a judge would probably deem your infringements negligible.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I agree. I've changed my sig to avoid violating the license terms.

Re:Previous art no longer holds up? Awesome

[jwo7777777]

I have a patent on thought and am unwilling to license it ... please desist immediately .... oh, wait .... you guys weren't .... nevermind ....

When are patent portfolios restraint of trade?

[postbigbang]

Judge Greene's breakup of AT&T into the RBOCs mean we now have less RBOCs, and if they have patents, they can stifle any competition they want. Is this a new way around the Sherman Anti-Trust Act???

All that's left are a handful of tiny regionals, and Verizon, AT&T, and QWest. MCI is dead and gone... and buying up patents (or even 'cleanly' filing them) means that these companies can effectively shutout the competition.

Not good.

Re:When are patent portfolios restraint of trade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly right. The RBOCs have no intention of giving up their monopolies simply because VOIP was developed. Vonage isn't the one who lost - technology lost. The consumer lost. You lost.

Kick a Verizon representative when you get a chance.

Re:When are patent portfolios restraint of trade?

[DeepHurtn!]

I believe the term used to describe this (when there are so many overlapping patents held by a few players that they can effectively raise the barrier of entry so high as to prohibit any new competitors) in legal and policy discussions is "patent thickets".

not good

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not good. I've been using Vonage for years. They provide decent service at good rates, specially for international calls, which I use a lot. What is the option now here in North Carolina? Time Warner? Bellsouth? Their service sucks and they are more expensive. Customer support is worse than non-existent. How is the current patent system serving the people? I understand free enterprise and all that, but lately just feel we the people get always screwed. Is this just me?

Re:not good

[fred fleenblat]

if you just need to save money, you can get POTS and an alternate LD carrier.
the combined costs should be within a few dollars a month of vonage.

Re:not good

[GreyPoopon]

f you just need to save money, you can get POTS and an alternate LD carrier.

the combined costs should be within a few dollars a month of vonage.

I seriously hope you're joking. The cost for unlimited local-only POTS service (with Verizon, ha ha) is $5 more than what Vonage charges for their premium residential plan, which includes unlimited calling to anywhere in the US and Canada. If I had to tack on a cheap long distance service, my costs would be an additional $30 per month (all my family lives out of state). Add to that Verizon's nutty ideas of what constitutes a local call, and there'll be an addition $10 per month in "regional toll" charges. That means I'd be paying $45 per month more if I went that route. I'd be better off getting their freedom unlimited plan. Oh, and I spend a couple hours a week on the phone with people in Germany. Vonage is only $.04/minute. How much would that be with Verizon?

Sorry, but there's no way shape or form that one of the local monopoly POTS services is going to be within a few dollars of what Vonage customers are paying now. Nobody would have ever switched from their regional incumbent monopoly unless they had significant reason to do so. There was an element of risk involved in trying out VoIP that required sufficient financial incentive to overcome.

Re:not good

[hoggoth]

> if you just need to save money, you can get POTS and an alternate LD carrier.
the combined costs should be within a few dollars a month of vonage.

You've got to be kidding.

I pay $14.99/month for the lowest Vonage plan. That includes all my local and long distance calls. That includes voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, etc etc etc. I have ONE phone number that simultaneously rings my home office, my 'real' office, and my cell phone. I have 3 rings to pick up any of those, otherwise it goes to voicemail.

I can configure these features with a click of a button.

On my old Verizon POTS line it took 2 weeks, almost $100 in setup charges, and a monthly fee to get voicemail.

I will miss Vonage very much if they go.

My local cable company (Optimum) now offers a similar VOIP service for twice the price. Better than POTS, but not as good as Vonage.

Re:not good

[fred fleenblat]

not a joke, i'm paying about $28 total per month for POTS + alt LD (incl regional).
$6 of that is caller ID so if I skipped that it would be $22.
this is in a major metro area with a bell system entity.

more to the topic though, just because vonage is likely to get more expensive or go away doesn't mean all your options are closed. there is still....
* skype
* ditching the land line in favor of cell
* cable modem "triple play" phone service

the incremental costs here can be very low, possibly less than vonage was charging. the main question is whether VZ will go after skype and cable companies using the same patents.

Re:not good

[fred fleenblat]

agreed, you will not get the flexibility of vonage using POTS.

if you have the patience, you might consider an asterix box so you can host your own voice mail and do whatever you want with it, without paying a tithe to the telco.

in fact, since voice mail flexibility was such a big advantage for vonage, it makes you wonder if some of the patents weren't about VOIP at all, but about voice mail over IP, or just some very broad voice mail (period) patents.

Re:not good

[gatzke]

They are really great. Including all those features at a lower cost is awesome.

I love getting email when I have a message at home.

I like being able to listen to it online.

I like having all my incoming and outgoing call information available.

I like having forwarding for free.

I like low cost international and free national.

I would probably pay a good bit more for this quality of service. TimeWarner offered less at a higher cost, so forget them...

Re:not good

[dnahelix1]

Let's see here: My cell phone sucks in my house. It's like the bermuda triangle of cell phone coverage. It doesn't matter who your provider is, it's not working. Triple play phone service......uh. no. thanks. The only reason I have issues with vonage are indirect to them because my cable sucks. Heaven forbid if I can get a signal between midnight and 1am. Suddenhell (I mean, suddenlink) insists there is no problem, No, ma'am I'm showing your modem hasn't been reset in over 48 hours (hey idiots, I just reset it before I called you.) Plus, I have an Indiana number while living in Texas, since my whole family is in Indiana. When I go there for a visit, I just take the router and ring ring, I have my phone. Same thing if I'm in a hotel. I'm on the $14.99 a month plan, it's a total of $20 a month, 500 minutes outgoing, all incoming free. When I had verizon, it was minimu $30 for the 'basic' plan (not including VM and CI). Sure, I can get a package for about $45 a month, including LD, but that's before taxes. My bill was minimum, $60 a month. Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:not good

[Chandon Seldon]

Just use a different VoIP provider - preferably one that's small enough that they won't get sued any time soon. SIP service is a commodity market (and one that major corporations use, so it's not going anywhere) - there's nothing special about Vonage except their ad budget.

Re:not good

[Raideen]

Wow, my phone bill used to be $34 including taxes with an alternate LD carrier and that's assuming I only placed one or two local calls that month. It would go up quickly if I made any additional phone calls. That didn't include unlimited anything or any features. Are you including taxes and other surcharges (which were the bulk of my bill)? You get unlimited LD in the U.S. and Canada for that price too? Who are your carriers?

Re:not good

[ScrewMaster]

Well, I have AT&T's (yeah, I know ... SBC, what can I say) CallVantage service and it works very well. Never had a problem with it, and it has a lot of nifty features (call logging, whitelists, LocateMe, voicemail as email attachments, etc.) Dunno about international calls, however, since I really don't make any. $25/month. And they're big enough that I don't think Verizon is likely to try any lawsuits in the near future.

Re:not good

[marnek]

Or you can get Lingo which gives you unlimited calling to US, Canada, and 21 countries in Western Europe and some others like South Korea for $21.95 a month. Vonage always was a ripoff compared to most other VOIP companies, they just spent huge amounts on marketing. I hate Verizon and Vonage equally.

Re:not good

[deficite]

Are the internat'l calls for business? If they're just personal, you can get them to use voice chat over the internet via Ventrillo or an IM client or something.

Re:not good

[fred fleenblat]

yep, actual total of local and LD bills including taxes and surcharges is about $28/month.

long dx and local-long dx is by ECG which is pennies per minute. even if I spend hundreds of minutes on the phone it's still cheaper than going with one of AT&T's ridiculously expensive calling plans.

local loop is owned by AT&T but has been pac bell, pac tel, and sbc over the years.
caller id is my only splurge. opted out of everything else they offered.

but i've had to stay on top of it. seems like once a year AT&T tacks on some new feature/fee and pretends like it's mandatory when it really isn't. i call 'em up and tell them to remove it and they give me a line of b.s. and i say remove it one more time and that's that.

one time (back when they were pac bell i think) was hilarious. they came out with a level of service they called Basic[tm] which included a bunch of extra crap. So when people called up and asked for basic phone service, they got Basic instead. Then they started converting people who had basic into Basic[tm] and the **** hit the fan when half the state realized their phone bills went up $10.

I expect better cell service in a couple of years, at which point I can drop the land line and use my $8/month cell phone (cingular prepaid).

obviously i am not a power user of the telephone, so i don't rack up tons of minutes on a regular basis, but i don't make any effort to keep calls short or anything either.

Dear Google...

[tgd]

Please add number porting to Grand Central so I don't lose my home number when Vonage goes under.

K thx bye.

What precisely are they infringing on?

[PenguinX]

I've really only heard that they are infringing on 'some patents' - anyone have a good synopsis of why Vonage is getting successfully sued out of business?

Re:What precisely are they infringing on?

[westlake]

anyone have a good synopsis of why Vonage is getting successfully sued out of business?

Vonage loses every case that goes to trial. Voyage loses every case that goes to an appeal.

Vonage can't win on the facts and it can't win on the law. It is running out of time and it is running out of money.

Re:What precisely are they infringing on?

[kingsqueak]

Patent cases are decided by juries of non-technical people who want nothing more than to get out of the court case as soon as they can.

Many many times a decision is handed down in a patent case that has nothing to do with the facts. The decisions are based on what the jury thinks they understand as the facts.

If you brought a patent case about the specific alloy of metal in railroad track with a patent for aluminum rails vs a user of steel rails, the average juror would see it as 'metal' rails and find there was infringement even though the patent was explicitly for the use of aluminum in the rails.

The patents as outlined in these cases are highly technical and most anyone who understands the technology can see there are some really troubling issues involved. This is with the minimal information available from the outside. A juror or a judge will have no idea what they are looking at.

The patent attorneys know this and prey on their victims accordingly....because they can.

What we need is massive patent law reform or only those with the deepest pockets will win.

1.50?

[the_skywise]

They've been averaging $2+change for the past month.

Re:who cares?

[Volante3192]

First, Verizon would have to offer service comparable to Vonage...

Vonage Stockholders?

[RobBebop]

Vonage's shares have dropped 87% since their IPO, now hovering around $1.50 per share.

Seriously, anybody who didn't see Vonage's failure coming before the IPO deserves this. They were an unprofitable company in a saturated market with a product (Voice-Over-IP) that doesn't appeal to most folks.

Sure, $20-25 per month for phone service is a wonderful deal but the major players with rock solid products have similar prices ($30-40 per month). And in effect, they will be de-listed soon and become another ghost in the great halls of technology company who never made it.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Anonymous Coward]

anybody who didn't see Vonage's failure coming before the IPO deserves this Maybe I'm just not as smart as you, but I don't think the demise of Vonage was quite so obvious.

...with a product (Voice-Over-IP) that doesn't appeal to most folks. Sure, $20-25 per month for phone service is a wonderful deal but the major players with rock solid products have similar prices ($30-40 per month). I don't know about that. Vonage's $25 includes just about everything you can imagine (voicemail with web-access and emailing of messages, caller ID, conference calls, unlimited long-distance, etc.). To get the same services from conventional phone companies costs considerably more (especially if you actually use long-distance). Monthly bills of $60-$100 are not uncommon in those cases.

And, really, I've seen lots of people interested in the lower prices and better packages that VoIP has to offer. However what seems to be happening are that cable companies are cleaning up in the VoIP space, because they already have the infrastructure, and can offer packages (TV/Internet/phone) that are actually a good deal.

Vonage, really, was a pretty good business with reasonably satisfied customers. In fact, I imagine they would have stood the test of time were it not for two things: (1) the incumbent monopolies are rich, and (2) patent law gives anyone with enough money the ability to exclude competitors.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[cdrguru]

Vonage sold its service to tons of DSL customers. DSL customers who were using the ILEC wires. This pretty much means the ILEC was supplying their competitor so the competitor could beat them over the head.

Not that this isn't an attractive situation. If the government forced you to rent your car out for 50% less than it cost you to rent it, would you be happy about the deal? Probably not. What could you do about it? Maybe nothing directly. But if you could find a loophole like requiring renters to have a million dollar liability insurance policy, maybe you wouldn't have to rent it out as much.

Or, if McDonalds had a deal that if you bought 100 hamburgers at a time they would sell them for $0.10 each. So you go there, by 100 hamburgers and set up a stand on the corner reselling them - right in front of McDonalds. And your sign is saying how cheap your "McDonalds" hamburgers are compared to the store behind you. Would McDonalds sell you another 100? Maybe not.

This is the sort of situation that Verizon found itself in. They do not have to support their competitors, but they had to support Vonage. The government and state regulators won't let them stop supporting Vonage directly. So we dust off an old patent and find it can be used to beat up Vonage. If it wasn't for the patent, there would be something else.

Best stick with one of the under-the-radar VOIP providers that just resells some bulk service from Sprint. Lingo is one of those. Cheaper than Vonage and a lot less visible.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Penguinisto]

Okay...

1. $25 is not "comparable" to $30-40 per month. The $30-$40 prices represent a 20% to ~60% mark-up over Vonage, and you end up with less features (and according to some, less reliability).
2. VoIP for the masses was not a "saturated" market when Vonage first hit the scene - at least not to Joe and Jane Sixpack.

IMHO, this little patent spat was Verizon's way of fucking-over a competitor without actually having to compete on merit to do so. (IIRC, the patent is basically a bogus "On teh Intarwebs!" rig-up of existing tech, folks).

Also, up until this lawsuit, Vonage was actually beginning to turn a profit. Not anymore.

That said, I honestly doubt that anyone saw it coming, up until Verizon decided they didn't like the competition anymore.

/P

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[websitebroke]

As a former Verizon customer who is now a Vonage customer, I can tell you that Vonage is definitely a better deal. POTS service through Verizon cost me about $35-$40 on paper when I first signed up, but the price would always creep up to the $40-$50/month range over the next few years. Then I'd call the bastards up, and we'd be back down to $35-$40. Then the process starts all over again.

Once I switched to Vonage, that problem went away, I've been with them for 3 years, and no price increase. I can call all of USA, Canada, and most of Europe as much as I want for the $27/month I pay, and it never changes. It was really freaking cheap for my wife to call me while I was in Pakistan last year too.

One other thing that POTS doesn't do is send you your phone messages via email.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Belial6]

I have heard this argument many times. The problem with it is that the local phone company is not the same company as the ISP with the same name. Take Verizon for example. Verizon ISP and Verizon Telephone are not the same company. Verizon ISP, which is the company that sold the DSL connection, is in no way hurt by Vonage, so no, Vonage is not competing with Verizon ISP.

Now, if we are going to say that Verizon ISP is not profitable on it's own, and requires the high margin POTS lines to subsidize it, then we have a classic anti-trust case where a monopoly is using it's monopoly position to control a different industry.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[NinjaTariq]

Only problem with these rock solid products is none of them are available where I live, none of the companies which have taken them to court offer landline service in my area. Only one telephone provider exists in our area and they refuse to take us on as customers... Also none of them offer me free calls to europe so that I can speak to my family.

Vonage is a good service, their service has gone a little downhill recently, possibly due to the court action and them changing things to try and get around it. Yes there are other VOIP products but none of them 'just work' like Vonage.

If Verizon is so damn good, i want them to offer me the same service in my area which Vonage currently does.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[That's Unpossible!]

Not to mention my vonage service is only $17 a month, not $25. (I get 500 minutes, long distance and several other features included, more than I need.)

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[That's Unpossible!]

Vonage sold its service to tons of DSL customers. DSL customers who were using the ILEC wires. This pretty much means the ILEC was supplying their competitor so the competitor could beat them over the head.

ILECs that were given monopolies in areas in exchange for precisely the scenario you describe -- opening up their copper to competitors.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[RobBebop]

Around that time (2004?) I had looked into a few IPO-worthy companies, with Vonage and Under Armour at the top of the list. Vonage was hated, and I wish I had the time to pull up the old articles from the way-back machine... but I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

Also, up until this lawsuit, Vonage was actually beginning to turn a profit. Not anymore.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=VG&annual

Now, I don't know how they figure their "Selling General and Administrative" liability, but for the last three years this has cost them more than their "Total Revenue" and even though their Revenues increased like crazy (almost tripling each year), so did their costs. And even if you add a couple of hundred million dollars that they had to spend in court to deal with the lawsuit, they are still losing money. And the are still in a market that is flooded with competition. Another post said that there are other, cheaper, better, more under-the-radar VOIP companies out there... and probably run a better business than Vonage because their costs are way out of proportion for what an internet business should be.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[TooMuchToDo]

But they don't have to open up their fiber to competitors.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Chandon Seldon]

Vonage is a good service, their service has gone a little downhill recently, possibly due to the court action and them changing things to try and get around it. Yes there are other VOIP products but none of them 'just work' like Vonage.

What makes you think that none of the other VoIP products 'just work' like Vonage? They just like any other SIP provider.

The non-Vonage provider I use, Galaxy Voice, just sent me a pre-configured ATA box - all I had to do was plug it into power, ethernet, and the phone. If I had asked, they would have sent a technician to even do that for me. I don't see how Vonage could 'just work' any better than that. And that's the sort of thing I'd expect from any residential-targeted SIP provider.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Chandon Seldon]

Vonage sold its service to tons of DSL customers. DSL customers who were using the ILEC wires. This pretty much means the ILEC was supplying their competitor so the competitor could beat them over the head.

DSL service is a general purpose data connection. The customer can use it for whatever they want. If the customer happens to use their data connection so that they no longer need some other service that the DSL provider sells, that sucks for the DSL provider - but you don't get to sell a general purpose data service and then complain when your customer uses it.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[NinjaTariq]

This is why i should never post on slashdot... Someone is bound to read it.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[dissy]

but you don't get to sell a general purpose data service and then complain when your customer uses it./quote.

You're new here arn't you ;P

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[Solandri]

Or, if McDonalds had a deal that if you bought 100 hamburgers at a time they would sell them for $0.10 each. So you go there, by 100 hamburgers and set up a stand on the corner reselling them - right in front of McDonalds. And your sign is saying how cheap your "McDonalds" hamburgers are compared to the store behind you. Would McDonalds sell you another 100? Maybe not.

If they're able to sell hamburgers for $0.10 at a profit, the fact that they're selling burgers for much more in their retail stores represents a market inefficiency. It's completely natural for a competitor to show up which takes advantage of that inefficiency. That's the way the market works. The problem isn't that a competitor is reselling McDonalds' hamburgers for a lower price in front of their stores. The problem is that the price in their stores is too high.

This is the sort of situation that Verizon found itself in. They do not have to support their competitors, but they had to support Vonage. The government and state regulators won't let them stop supporting Vonage directly. So we dust off an old patent and find it can be used to beat up Vonage. If it wasn't for the patent, there would be something else.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what Verizon the DSL company has to do with Verizon the phone company, aside from sharing a corporate structure. Verizon the DSL company sells Internet connectivity. They're not in competition with Vonage. They set their DSL priced at a rate which they feel they can generate a profit. That means the money I pay them each month is enough to cover their expenses, including for the phone line. They're not subsidizing their competitors - I've already paid them for the phone line and the connectivity. It shouldn't matter at all to them what I do with that connectivity.

Verizon the phone company is in competition with Vonage. If they can't compete with VoIP, they need to do something to lower their prices. If they can't do so without generating a profit, then they need to improve their business model (maybe switch to VoIP) or die trying.

I haven't fully read up on the patents at issue here, so maybe Verizon is in the right on those grounds. But from a free market standpoint, this smacks of abusing legal procedure to stifle competition to maintain higher prices (Verizon DSL is consistently about 30% higher priced than SBC DSL in areas where SBC does not offer service - funny what a little competition can do). Of course if the patents are valid, then the temporary monopoly granted to them via the patent justifies the higher pricing. But if the patents aren't valid, then Verizon is holding back progress and technological efficiency so they can gouge customers for more money.

Re:Vonage Stockholders?

[slamb]

If the government forced you to rent your car out for 50% less than it cost you to rent it, would you be happy about the deal? Probably not.

I don't understand your comparison. Vonage customers pay a conventional ISP (say, Verizon) for broadband service (e.g. DSL). Are you saying that the government is forcing phone companies to sell DSL at below cost? Please share details, because I'm not getting that deal. Is it only available to Vonage customers? I'll sign up right now.

(Moderators, if cdrguru does not post a verifiable answer to my question, please mark the parent as a troll.)

competition

[TI-8477]

The reason all of th big telco's are going after vonage iss because its business model is far better than their's. Simply put, they're afraid of competition.

Re:competition

[fat_mike]

Good logic. Is this why there are no dominant cable companies offering VOiP?

Oh wait...Charter, Comcast, Time/Warner...

Your conclusion is flawed. Vonage started as a couple of people who saw a market and took advantage of, damn the consequences. They've known for some time that they were infringing on other's work. If I owned a company and someone tried to muscle into my territory by stealing my patented technology, I damn well will go after them legally. And I'll win.

Slashdot Law School - I'm right and you're wrong and you have to give me everything for free, not as in beer, just because I want it.

And to the guy above with the $60-100 bill, prove it. Find one, scan it, highlight the charges and post it. Otherwise you sound like a Slashdot editor who has no facts but enjoys pulling bullshit out of your ass.

And TI-8477, simply put - prove it. Do a comparison of the "big telco's" business plan and Vonage's.

Re:competition

[ToasterMonkey]

They don't have nearly as many features as Vonage, and cost more for basic service. I'm going to see red if I have to get VOIP from my cable company or a regular phone line.

Re:who cares?

[bn0p]

I do.

I have had Vonage for three years and have been very happy with their service. Verizon doesn't offer VoIP (or anything except wireless) in my area and their wireless prices aren't anywhere near $25 a month.

I would be happy to see Verizon (or Comcast or Qwest) compete on price.


Never let reality temper imagination.

Soooo, looks like...

[davidsyes]

Von Boyage?

Re:Soooo, looks like...

[rhizome]

Von Boyage?

Only if they wind up having to go to jail.

Darn...

[rickb928]

Guess this means I shouldn't buy that VonageLinksys router gizmo on clearance at Wal-Mart?

Or maybe I can flash it into something useful when Vonage dies?

Re:Darn...

[ncc74656]

Guess this means I shouldn't buy that VonageLinksys router gizmo on clearance at Wal-Mart?

Or maybe I can flash it into something useful when Vonage dies?

Depends on the price. I recently switched from Packet8 to Gizmo Project; after bricking my DTA310 trying to get it working with Gizmo, I ordered one of these earlier this week. I already have a WRT54GL (running OpenWRT Kamikaze), so I don't need router functionality in an ATA. I might try unbricking the DTA310 at some point, but that's a low priority now.

(As an aside, flashing your DTA310 with Packet8's v11.11 firmware is a bad idea. It won't work with Packet8 anymore, it won't work with other VoIP providers, and you won't be able to return to a firmware version that does work.)

(As another aside, Twinkle works great on AMD64 Linux and is less of a hassle to get running that Gizmo's Linux client. Theroetically, KPhone should also work, but I could only get it to work with inbound and toll-free outbound calls.)

Brace up for higher bills

[bogaboga]

This will be a simple one for Vonage customers. What I know Vonage will do is to increase charges for their customers. From their present customer base, a flat 0.1% charge will solve that cash flow issue.

Question

[pembo13]

How is losing jobs to outsourcing worse than losing jobs to patent law suits? I ask since no one mentions the lost jobs in these kind of cases.

Re:Question

[OrangeTide]

because patent lawsuits are not necessary, while outsourcing is necessary. Well not necessary, but rather it is part of normal free market behavior, at least one where jobs have been commoditized.

To a person who had a job all that really matters is now they don't have a job. Listing on slashdot every company that had to lay people off would quickly become depressing.

Re:Question

[SeaFox]

How is losing jobs to outsourcing worse than losing jobs to patent law suits?

In one scenario, somebody else gets your job, in the other nobody gets your job.

Re:I am glad I am unaffected

[MouseR]

But you *are* affected.

One less telecom fighting for your dollars means one less competitors and thus less consumer options, even for just internet access.

Not *this* December

[HunterD]

Read the article, Vonage may default in 13 months (December 2008) not in 1 month (December). Do the editors even *read* what they post?

Re:Not *this* December

[HunterD]

Guess I should have made my sarcasm more obvious ;)

Sad to see them go...

[andyring]

Granted, as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I'm not dead yet!" but it's sad to see this happen. I was a customer of Vonage almost since they started, and have been quite happy with their service. I only recently canceled on account of simply not needing a home phone and having a company-provided cell phone that I can use for personal calls.

This is really getting sad.

[Lordplatypus]

I appreciate what patent law is meant to do, protect and encourage inventors and developers to invent and develop. It seems though, that as of late, it only succeeds in limiting and discouraging people from trying to develop something useful. I seems to me that with the nature of today's technology, that if a company develops a patent and does not try to produce or license the technology, they should loose the ability to sue over its use. -lp

Re:This is really getting sad.

[Shados]

I agree, or at least, something similar. One argument against forcing patent holders to use the technology themselves, is because little guys with bright ideas but not enough money to implement it would get screwed, and I agree on that too.

So really, there should be a method to gauge effort in trying to get the product out of the door, even if it means actively trying to license it up front, advertising it, trying to get proofs of concepts out...-something-. That way submarine patents and patents just there to screw people over would be covered...

One would have to be very careful and consider very well each word of how that "rule" would be written...but something along that line would help... Again, if its just actively advertising it...that way at leasy one wouldnt have to go through millions of patents to see if their product is safe or not.

Re:This is really getting sad.

[Chandon Seldon]

You're focusing on a single symptom and ignoring most of the problem.

Consider this: What if Verizon *is* selling products based on all of these patents, but they're completely different than the products that Vonage is selling? Then the effect that the patents are having is to allow a single company to prevent any sort of innovation in any related field.

Re:Patent on the wheel.

[Technician]

Dibs on patenting the wheel.
--

You are too late..

However, in that case, an Australian lawyer was able to sneak the wheel patent through a fast-track application system. The US patent went through the full application procedure.

Refrence;
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2178.html

Alternate VoIP companies thread

[GreyPoopon]

Please post your experience with other VoIP companies that compete against Vonage in this thread.

Re:Alternate VoIP companies thread

[BlueNoteMKVI]

I've done a lot of work with VOIP both for myself and for a few clients. In a business situation look at setting up an Asterisk server (very easy with TrixBox). For home use there are lots of similar providers. You can look up some information at http://www.voip-info.org/ and the forums at http://www.trixbox.org./ I've had good experience with Vitelity and VoicePulse. I use their services to connect to my Asterisk box, so that doesn't directly transfer over. Based on what I've seen a few of my friends go through I can recommend that you NOT go with SunRocket.

RE: Verizon...

[DaedalusHKX]

I once FOUGHT to get DSL from Verizon, and they did EVERYTHING to make sure they wouldn't get my money, even disconnecting me while transferring my call to the "proper department" three times, hanging up on me once, telling me they service an area and later not following up when they said they would. Tech never shows up, etc.

Seriously, if they want business, such as mine, for example, the sun will go supernova before they get it.

Ch 11, but not Ch 7

[bxwatso]

Vonage may not have the cash to make debt payments and they may go bankrupt, but they should still operate and not dissolve.

1. The Vonage name has excellent recognition due to their heavy investment in advertising.

2. Vonage has a paid up license to use the patents required to implement Voip.

3. The various patent holders (Verizon, ATT, one other) should probably go after other Voip providers like Packet 8 who don't have nearly the cash on hand to survive the suits. Therefore, the VOIP consumer marketplace may have only one competitor soon.

Don't buy their stock, for it may go to zero, but also don't expect Vonage to go out of business. Someone will likely want their assets at a reduced (below book cost) price.

Your tax dollars hard at work.

[DaedalusHKX]

This is part of that "social bargain" that government is.

Let me rephrase, you waive your right to free choice in all things, and in exchange you receive whatever those you voted for feel that they owe you. Generally its mediocre services (such as justice or medicine), or total and complete abuse (such as prohibitionist laws, feel good propaganda and theft of personal property through armed robbery (confiscation) or fraud (taxes for "necessary services")).

Whenever a company with good service shows up (and Vonage was among them when they first started out), they get shafted by the collusion of the tools of government (corporations) and the tools of corporations (government). Who gets the shaft? Those whom the government is supposed to "protect".

Get over it folks, every time you rely on crooks to stop other crooks from robbing you, all you get is "We've robbed you twice, but don't worry, we'll make up for it!! Stay here, we'll be right back with a bigger bag."

Screw the phone companies

[GottliebPins]

I remember the day I switched to Vonage. I remember with great satisfaction opening the access panel in my ceiling and yanking the phone cable out of the junction box and plugging in my Vonage cable. And last spring I enjoyed even more ripping up 45 feet of buried phone cable while doing some landscaping. I don't care if Vonage has to raise their prices to the same rate or higher than the regular phone companies. Screw them. Why do so many people belong to Netflix when there's a Blockbuster just down the street that you can also rent by mail? Because we remember all the times we took it in the shorts for late fees. The only reason they're lowering prices and renting online is because of Netflix. If Netflix goes away we're back to being screwed again. The telco's have sucked for too long and will never get better without real competition. I hope Vonage sticks around. Hell I even prefer my MetroPCS service to AT&T. I can barely get reception in my house and there are lots of places I can't get service but by God I'd rather pay $30 bucks a month to the little guy than get reamed with overages, at least everything's unlimited on MetroPCS.

Re:Screw the phone companies

[gujo-odori]

Good point. I'm also a Vonage customer, and it would cost me at least twice as much to get an equivalent calling plan on a POTS line. If Vonage has to raise their prices, I can accept that.

I don't know if the worse case in this situation would be that they go under, or that they be acquired by Verizon and sink into mediocrity, but if they go under, who would you go with? I used to be a Packet 8 customer before Vonage, and Vonage is far better than Packet 8 for both reliability and (especially) the quality of their website. I could go back to them if they are the next best after Vonage, but I hope there's somebody else better.

Re:Screw the phone companies

[hurfy]

Of course the mod points expire as i find something to mod up :(

Good for you :)

Same reason i keep paying for my MMORPG subscription even tho i don't do much anymore, i can afford to and they can use the subscriber numbers so the remaining players can play until the end of time hopefully if they wish ;) Besides for the 1st couple years i probably got 100 hours out of my $10 each month and saved $100 not buying other games, i figure i'll be ahead until like 2012 :)

$2.5 million to charity?

[langelgjm]

Under the terms of the settlement, the $120 million payment would have been cut to $80 million had the appeals court in Washington agreed to review the decision. Holmdel, New Jersey- based Vonage must pay $117.5 million to Verizon and give $2.5 million to charity.

What's with the $2.5 million to charity? Is this a common thing in such lawsuits? And does anyone know what charity/charities?

Re:Who's next? Viatalk?

[compro01]

IIRC, the patent is on a POTS to IP bridge system.

you're right though that this puts a lot of others at risk. AFAICT, there is no way to do VOIP-to-normal-phones calls without this.

Re:Always

[postbigbang]

I understand patent protection, and understand misuse.

I also understand monopolies, and the Sherman Anti-trust Act, The 1996 TCA Act, and other legislation.

What I'm alluding to is that if a sufficient number of patent protections amounts to monopolization of an industry-- once a former public trust-- then there's some thing wrong here.

Vonage is a victim, just as many technology companies are victims, of the patent process. Vonage had a chance,but doesn't now. Yesterday on /. was the story of how AT&T might filter video content. The trend is onerous. Muni-WiFi is dead. As PCs become mobiles/cell phones, the telco monopolies dictate business, not technological advances. It's onerous.

Whoo hoo, whoo hoo hoo

[onion_joe]

whoo hoo, whoo hoo hoo killed my memories of Kill Bill so quickly?

Vonage, I'ma lookin' at you, bub...

These patents should be reviewed

[spectro]

WTF are Vonage lawyers doing, they should've ask for these obvious patents to be reviewed. I skimmed through these and all I saw were claims about doing something on the internet.

If somebody from Vonage is reading this, fire your lawyers and hire some good ones.

Damn...

[blahplusplus]

It's a damn shame to see a well run business get fucked over by the dickhead kinds of capitalists....

In capitalist barberica, profit gives way to mediocrity!

Did anyone not see this coming?

[/dev/trash]

Like the incumbents were going to just allow a startup take away their bread and butter. Internet? Piss on that. Cable? Same. Phone calls. The Baby Bells make a SHITLOAD of money on old fashioned telephone calls.

Re:Patent on the wheel.

[the eric conspiracy]

To be fair the Australian "innovation patent" law is more like a provisional patent in the US - it really has no legal standing until some additional legal work is done.

AT&T .... Verizon... Same Difference

[lindoran]

anybody wanna wager a guess how long it takes AT&T to do something similar?

Re:They should call Darl McBride

[CustomDesigned]

I would cheer them on if only Verizon was going to get stiffed. But if they got away with that, likely only the honest creditors would get stiffed, and Verizon would get most of the leavings.

Van forsale?

[Belak]

So, if they do go under, will the sell the van from the commercials? I want to bid on it!!!!!

Re:Always

[postbigbang]

Sadly, Vonage was big enough to be on the radar screen and was easily nuked. Smaller companies fly under the radar and don't get sued because it's not really worth it for Verizon to do so-- or AT&T or Lucent (ex of AT&T), or the other visible and invisible VoIP patent 'trolls'.

Just because you haven't seen more litigation doesn't mean that there won't be a lot of it soon, now that the game is over in this litigation-- successfully for Verizon and a death knell to Vonage. It puts up barriers to entry, and keeps other companies that haven't signed agreements (or who can't raise sufficient floor capital) to enter into the market. The FCC is plainly too stupid to understand the dynamics, and the Congress is too bribed by campaign contributions and armies of lobbying lawyers (I've seen these guys in Congressional offices-- they're an awesome and muscular presence in a freshman congressman's office). Much muscle is put in by the carriers towards getting their shareholder goals. Please don't mistake this effort for being less than what it really is: control.

Verizon and AT&T have high-profile fiber investments that depend on VoIP to get their numbers. Less competitors, less attrition, more retention, less service, bigger profits. We've been here before. The barriers to entry won't be as easy as the Tarriff 12 ILECs had. If it were, anyone with some decent coders and Digium/Asterisk could become virtual providers, and the telcos DON'T WANT THAT-- it's TOO EASY.

A couple of questions a party line?

[blackest_k]

I just took a look at the vonage deal in the uk and it's got me interested. Especially the concept of taking my vonage box with me to anywhere with a broadband connection.

Then I had an idea, that must have been explored already. Would it be possible for someone outside my lan to connect to my lan and then use my vonage (other voip) account to make calls? How about routing incoming calls to other IP's perhaps some kind of system that would greet a caller with please select an extension say 1 to 9 and 1 could be local to my lan 2 could link to my sisters IP 3 to a friends IP, 4 to an ip I could specify on the fly so my calls could be rerouted to where ever I was in the world.

I guess Skype kind of achieves some of this already to an extent in that its possible to log into a skype account anywhere.

Maybe it's possible to do something like this with a standard pots line routing into a pc based exchange?

Anyone have any insight into whats available and hopefully legal.

The Charity part disgusts me.

[jon287]

No amount of "giving to charity" will sanitize this anti-capitalist, corporatist, bullshit greed.

OOhhh... I know. Give 2% to some charity. That should solve our pr problems! Shame on them for even bringing it up.

So any alternates?

[CRiMSON]

Can anyone recomend an alternate vip/viop provider. I'm looking for something with free LD in north America. And available in canada (so they don't have some weird rule about us company selling voip to the enemy (oh noez!!)).

Any help?

Complete BS

[ToasterMonkey]

WTF, they're not reselling basic phone service. They're providing value added VOIP over the internet service customers might receive from a company that also provides regular phone service.

If I lease a car to someone, and they use it for a taxi service, how exactly is that unfair?
If McDonald's sells burgers and provides public outdoor seating (hypothetical, they really don't AFAIK), and someone opens up a hotdog stand across the street, what wrong is being done?

The phone line required for DSL service doesn't even compare to Vonage's service. Will AT&T email you and anyone else in your household a copy of all your voicemails? Virtual numbers? Pick your own area code? Portable service? Transfer to another number when the service is unavailable? Softphone? How much do phone companies charge for anything close to those features, if they are available at all? How many offer additional lines for $5? I'm curious, do phone companies get all pissy because dial-up ISPs are getting "free rides"?

Vonage is a HUGE added value over basic phone service, and the fact that it can run over a traditional phone company's INTERNET service is completely irrelevant.
I can "sling" TV over my cable provider's internet service too. It's not sleazy reselling like you suggest. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with it. If phone/cable companies don't want to enable competition via the internet, they need to stop providing internet service. You can't have your cake and eat it too (without lots of sleazy lobbying).

Support Vonage, because when they go, we'll slip into a VOIP dark age. Look how "innovative" your phone and cable service providers have been over the last decade, that's what you'll have to look forward too.

Nice...

[PhotoGuy]

I fear for Vonage's demise. At least here in eastern Canada, no one can touch the rates they offer. I'm quite happy with the service, more than happy with the features, and love the great price. I dread being forced back to an expensive, featureless Aliant land line, all because of big US telcos beating up on Vonage. Hopefully someone else will step in if they die, but it sounds like some of these patents are so broad (sending packetized voice data, blah blah blah) that without patent reform, nobody will be able to.

Verizon is dead, long live Google

[kko]

Let's just see what happens when Google buys up all that spectrum, and kills the phone companies. Bye bye Verizon!

Re:Patent on the wheel.

[Technician]

To be fair the Australian "innovation patent" law is more like a provisional patent in the US

OK to be fair, it shows they put in dibs first.

Patents trump competition law

[pieterh]

What few people realize is that patent law trumps competition law. This is one reason large technology firms are so pro-patent even when it creates huge risk for them. Collusion between firms that would be considered illegal cartel-forming, and result in 20-year prison sentences, becomes 100% legal when there is a single patent involved.

What is happening to Vonage is what happens to every aggressive competitor in a market dominated by incumbents and protected by patents. It does not matter how innovate a new firm is. It will, always, infringe on a basic patent somewhere, and end up in a war of attrition that the incumbent will usually win. The innovator has two choices: die, or sell out.

Patents do not drive innovation, not in software and not elsewhere except maybe, maybe in pharma. They promote the self interest of large business and of the patent industry, period.

Note that Microsoft's patent war on FOSS goes along exactly the same lines. Convicted monopolist pleads guilty (in the EU) and move toward a patent licensing business, blessed by the regulator, which allows it to destroy and/or buy up its real competition.

This is about the strongest argument against software patents. They are literally a tool used by cartels and monopolists to control or destroy their competition. It's amazing that after 150-200 years of this discussion, governments still don't realize what kind of damage they do.

It's ugly....

[postbigbang]

It's so odd how business has become the new 'war'.

Strategies that must be millennia old foisted with seeming deadly precision against upstart enemies.

Peace seems so elusive sometimes, when by rule, those in business must be wary of the competition (in so many forms), supply chain, the ambiguity and vaguery of patent laws and outcomes of litigation, then coupled to a seemingly benign government, employment law, and a the whims of the stock market.

The reason that pharma patents do so well, is because a resultant cost of goods is low and somewhat predictable, and the supply/demand is health and/or death..... two very strong motivators. Yet I question the enormous retail costs of needed pharmaceuticals for the third world, especially the HIV victims in subsaharan Africa.. or the chemo regimen for various kinds of cancer..... at what cost, and pain.... and what restraint of trade (if quality of manufacture can be the same?).

The err seems perpetually imbalanced.

a DSL customer shouldn't hurt a telco bottom line

[sys_mast]

Um....to parent...someone who gets DSL from a telco, but uses vonage over that line should NOT be hurting the telco bottom line. they should be making a profit off the DSL service. if the telco is not doing that they should go under. The other option is that customer could get a cable modem instead, and use vonage, an then the telco would not be getting any money, they should be HAPPY to have a DSL only customer. I know my local telco is happy to have DSL only customers, since they charge TWICE the price for DSL only, compaired to adding DSL to other services, of course when I say happy i mean how much they get each month $$$$ for that service.

I think you are actually confusing the issue with the issue of DSL ISP's being allowed to use the local telco wires to the home to offer DSL in direct competition to the telco DSL service. In which case you are just off topic.