Needed: A Better Buzzword Than Customersourcing

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming For Vonage

from the piling-on dept

Mon, Jun 19th 2006 8:45am — Carlo Longino

Looks like Vonage will have a nice case of the Mondays today: its bad patch continues with word that it's being sued by Verizon for patent infringment. Not only does it come on the heels of the continued fallout of Vonage's bungled IPO, it's also the fourth time the company has been sued for patent infringement. With the number of patent suits flying around the VoIP industry, it's hard to believe everybody (or anybody) is guilty, but that's almost beside the point for Vonage. The company's long been hammered for its marketing spending; now its legal bills look set to skyrocket too.

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18 Comments

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Ian, 19 Jun 2006 @ 9:16am

Thats cos america sucks

FIRST POST (at time of writing)
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Howard, 19 Jun 2006 @ 9:20am

I tend to judge a company...
Vonage spams. I get 10-15 spams/week from Vonage (last time I checked; I use adaptive filtering). I won't ever buy anything Vonage produces, period. If they go away, that just means less spam for my adaptive filters to munch.
--
Howard Lee Harkness
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Guru80, 19 Jun 2006 @ 9:26am

Poor Vonage
I actually use vonage with great results. I do agree though that their advertising crosses the line between repetitive and spamming.

With the quality of service I have recieved you would think there would be some actual good news out there about Vonage.
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WirelessGuy, 19 Jun 2006 @ 9:27am

Great first post Ian
I love it when people take the time to write out such an informed commentary about things. With such style, spelling, grammar, and just plain old good stuff, I see you going places....

Vonage is another company in a long line of attempts to cash in before people realize what you are doing is wrong. However, this time the IPO fizzled before people could lose too much money. I find it hard to pay for a proprietary version of VoIP when there are better products that don't require specialized hardware like Gizmo. Plus with the stupid commercials, it is too obnoxious a product to associate with.
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subculture, 19 Jun 2006 @ 9:55am

Re: Great first post Ian
I love Vonage and been a long and satisfied customer for more than 2 yesrs...its a great service and probably one of the earliest to
introduce VoIP and kicked the baby bells butt. If you start associating ads with quality of the product, you would stop taking any pill!!
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Topher3105, 19 Jun 2006 @ 10:12am

Vonage is Good
Unless you have used ANY other VOIP service, the you will realize how feature limiting and poorly implemented Vonage is, much like how the company is run in general. Vonage may have been the first, but other companies know how to do it right, and Vonage isn't one of them.
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chris, 19 Jun 2006 @ 10:13am

Spam?
I have also been using Vonage for 2 years and have NEVER recieved any email from them except for a monthly statement.
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Chris Miller, 19 Jun 2006 @ 10:15am

The end of traditional telecom monopolies
Vonage is in trouble because they are reshaping an industry where the "old school" people are threatened. They, the traditional tel companies, can't get their fat margins by charging you a ton of money for crappy service on their already paid for infrastructure. The only choice they have is to destroy vonage and all VoIP before it detroys them. Many countries, including Malaysia and Qatar, are so threatened that they block VoIP from working so that you have to do business with the government owned monopolies. It is easy for them to do this since they provide all the land lines and cable. I was in Malaysia recently trying to use VoIP and Telecom Malaysia was blocking the ports. They claimed that VoIP just is not as good and that is why I was having problems. I finally had to do business with these lying rats.

It doesn't matter if vonage doesn't make money and is eventually put to death by the telecom nazis. They can't stop the next VoIP company and the one after that. The end of the traditional telecom company screwing the customer is inevitable.
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Bren, 19 Jun 2006 @ 10:52am

Happy with Vonage... so far...
I got vonage 30 days ago, and have been happy with the service so far. Admittedly, I signed up before reading/hearing about all the legal troubles they've having, and I might have thought twice before choosing them. However, being happy so far, I'll stick around until they piss me off, or go under....
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Rory, 19 Jun 2006 @ 11:05am

Re:
you are a complete loser
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hometoast, 19 Jun 2006 @ 11:17am

Re: Vonage is Good
such as? I really like Vonage, but I'm never too loyal to get a better deal.
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Christopher Allen, 19 Jun 2006 @ 11:29am

Vonage is Great
I have used Vonage since 2002 with no complaints. I have reduced my phone costs for home and business by 300.00 per month. The reason Vonage has so many problems is because the phone companies are losing so much money. And as far as the 911 problems go the stupid people should have read the information insted of just clicking thru.
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ZA, 19 Jun 2006 @ 11:41am

Re: Re: Great first post Ian
I agree, the ads are a little obnoxious, but the service on the other hand is great. I have also been a customer for over two years and haven't had any trouble with them. I have no intention of switching. When someone takes them over, I will remain a loyal customer.

Obnoxious ads aren't the worse thing in the world. Vonage is renoun for their ads...
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?, 19 Jun 2006 @ 12:09pm

Vonage!
Vonage provides an excellent service - I love that my voicemails get emailed to me, and the dashboard that they have to configure and monitor usage is simple and excellent. I have used other VoIP services, and none are as good.

Interesting that Verizon is suing. Just the other day Verizon called me and tried to sell me their phone service. I say: Do you provide 'x' service, and the rep. said no. Then I asked if they provide 'x' service, and the rep again said no.

Vonage makes it very easy to reconfigure your account, add and subtract services. Nothing compares. It sucks to see that they have become the whipping boy in the VoIP world. Granted, they have (had?) a few people on staff that stained their reputation - but I think the rest of it has more to do with the bigger telco's being frightened by some little newcomer that provides interesting and unique services - without charging extra!

For $25 I sure get a ton of toys and features (many of them I use), if I were using a traditional telco, then I wouldn't have some of my favorite features (voicemails in the email box is one, custom duration of ring before forwarding to VM is another). Or I would have to pay extra to use the feature (auto redial of a busy number comes to mind).

Oh, and the fact that I can log in - anywhere in the world and direct my incoming calls to the number of my choosing is pretty cool to. I can do that with Verizon - but I have to call them during normal business hours and talk to tech support.

Boo Verizion, long live Vonage!
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WirelessGuy, 19 Jun 2006 @ 12:15pm

No doubt that Vonage is good
I am glad everyone is happy with Vonage, I am merely talking about how they have a average product that is limited to deployment compared to other VoIP services that only need PC, such as SKYPE or GIZMO.

In the very near future, wireless companies will be offering a technology called UMA (Unlincesed Mobile Access), or VoIP on WiFi built into the cellular phone, which could help out those who want to try and save even more money in the future.
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?, 19 Jun 2006 @ 12:53pm

Re: No doubt that Vonage is good
That is part of the problem - I don't want to be tied to my PC when making a call - and phones with built in WiFI are costly and don't have the batter life that my regular phone has.

Skype and Gizmo offer okay services, but they are more limited than Vonage in what you can get from them.

Vonage doesn't offer a local number in my area - but that doesn't stop me from using them. You read on this site about unintended consequences - the unintended consequence of going with Vonage was that I was able to add a local number to my home business for a neighboring major market.

That helped me out quite a bit!
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Happy With Vonage, 18 Jul 2006 @ 8:28am

Vonage is good.
I've had Vonage for 6 months now. Their customer service is VERY friendly and helpful.

Their provided services on my line are more numerous than was my landline. They offer a WiFI phone if I wanted one and a USB phone that plugs into any computer that's hooked up to broadband...and it's small enough that it fits on your keychain.

The only downfall was that I actually had to read to set up my 911 and to figure out my voicemail. Heaven forbid! I had to READ!

I love that I can call my friends in Canada, England, and France for no extra charge! The line actually sounds *better* than my land line sounded when it would rain outside.

I left my land line company after they merged with a large Telecom that dicked me over twice. Once on a credit card and the other time because they lied to me about my "free nights and weekends" that they didn't add to my account like they said they did. They they claimed that I owed them over $700 after that in night and weekend calls. They were completely unwilling to listen to me when I told them that they promised me nights and weekends. So I vowed NEVER to use anything in which that Telecom was involved.

I hope Vonage stays around. They have great customer service and a good product. Maybe if the big Telecoms took a lesson in value and customer service from Vonage, they wouldn't have to sue them to make money.
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anonymous, 15 Mar 2007 @ 2:04am

Re: vonage service
I was using the vonage service and there are very poor customer service and the calls are blocking and it goes to voice mail i was sick of calling the support team repeatedly and when i cancel my servive they charged me $50. All of them are fools who are using the vonage service. So never ever use any vonage service
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