And The Hits Just Keep On Coming For Vonage
from the piling-on dept
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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FIRST POST (at time of writing)
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Re:
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I tend to judge a company...
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Howard Lee Harkness
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Poor Vonage
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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Great first post Ian
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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Re: Great first post Ian
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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Re: Re: Great first post Ian
Obnoxious ads aren't the worse thing in the world. Vonage is renoun for their ads...
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Vonage is Good
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Re: Vonage is Good
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Spam?
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The end of traditional telecom monopolies
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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Happy with Vonage... so far...
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Vonage is Great
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Vonage!
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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No doubt that Vonage is good
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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Re: No doubt that Vonage is good
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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Vonage is good.
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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Re: vonage service
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