Is The Collapse Of SunRocket Another Nail In Vonage's Coffin?

from the to-the-ground dept

Tue, Jul 17th 2007 10:10am — Joseph Weisenthal

The slow death of SunRocket (which has now been confirmed), has prompted a lot of discussion about how to move to a new service if you're a SunRocket customer. Obviously, any SunRocket customer is going to have a few inconvenient days as they try to make the switch to another VoIP operator, if they do so at all. Also, just as Vonage's woes made it harder for SunRocket to raise funds, SunRocket's collapse could end up hurting Vonage. If Vonage customers start to freak out that they could lose their phone service as well (a prospect made more likely by the ongoing litigation against the company), then they may preemptively flee, looking for a more stable service. The phenomenon, whereby doubts about some sellers end up hurting more reputable services, is what economists would call a market for lemons, and this would seem to be a classic example. Meanwhile, Vonage investors have fled the scene long ago, as Vonage shares languish at all-time lows.

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Filed Under: voip
Companies: sunrocket, vonage

23 Comments

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Special K, 17 Jul 2007 @ 10:22am

Gramatical Error?
Is The Collapse Of SunRocket Be Another Nail In Vonage's Coffin?
Don;t you mean Will the collapse or remove the "Be"
Just trying to be helpful because it sounds too weird.

But defenetly the collapse of SunRocket will do damage to small VOIP companies. May help some gain more customers but it's a warning
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- Charles "Red Beard" Griswold, 17 Jul 2007 @ 12:25pm
  
  Re: Gramatical Error?
  Is The Collapse Of SunRocket Be Another Nail In Vonage's Coffin?
  Perhaps he be practicin' fer Talk Like a Pirate Day.
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Jon, 17 Jul 2007 @ 10:26am

Dear Vonage, Charge Me More
My 500 minute plan is $22 a month after taxes, etc. If it were $27 or even $32 it would still be cheaper than my old plan with MCI - which incidentally was $65 a month. So, Vonage, if it means staying in business, you can increase my bill.
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- david, 27 Jul 2007 @ 7:51pm
  
  Re: Dear Vonage, Charge Me More
  Try viatalk.com. It's about 1/2 the price of Vonage. I'm pleased with my service with them for the last year.
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Sunrocket Customer, 17 Jul 2007 @ 10:37am

3 cents a minute, international. Now who is gonna give me that rate !
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- Gene, 20 Jul 2007 @ 2:06pm
  
  Re: sunrocket customer
  go to www.teleblend.net .. they are giving a discount of $12.95 a month for the rmaining length of your existing sunrocket contract. Everything remains the same. The equipment, the number and the same services including the international rates. Good alternative from changing suppliers at least until your contract ends. Seamless change over.
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JS Beckerist, 17 Jul 2007 @ 10:50am

to #3
Skype!
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C.G., 17 Jul 2007 @ 10:59am

To #4 et al...
Skype sucks for most people because it is software based. Other products like Vonage and SunRocket actually replaced your physical phone letting people keep the convenience of their cordless phones at home, the usability they are used to, and the cheap rates.

Grated, Skype is flexible but unless you get a Skype enabled phone (which most people don't have or even know what it is), Skype is going to be limited to techies who know what they are doing and are more interested in free than value.

If Vonage goes under, my local cable company is one of my only options to get VoIP the way Verizon offered me a land line - through a phone I can pay $5 for at Radio Shack.
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EricW, 17 Jul 2007 @ 11:16am

I will hold out until the last minute because I have had nothing but excellent service and not a second of downtime or interruptions in all the time I have had them. I have the unlimited plan and a fax line that I use for my business and could not be happier with both. I hope for the best but if they go down I will be here until they go to the big dial tone in the sky.

Of course I already have a backup plan in place to minimize any downtime for my fax machine but hopefully it stays a backup.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jul 2007 @ 11:19am

How about focusing in on Verizon being bottom feeding scum, that is basically trying to push out a viable competitor and force the consumers to pay more for service?
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Special K, 17 Jul 2007 @ 11:35am

Thanks for fixing the title
and I got a question..
If it's dead why the heck aren't they disabling the sign up feature?
I doubt many people will sign up but they got no breaking news there to say anything. :(
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George, 17 Jul 2007 @ 11:53am

VOIP
Had vonage for over two years. Love it. Also have skype, not as good quality in my case. Vonage is identical to "normal" land lines operation.
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SP, 17 Jul 2007 @ 12:05pm

ARGH!!! Stop saying independant VOIP will fail!!!
Damnit Techdirt. Why must you insist that the fall of one VOIP company will cause all the others to fall down with them like dominos??? That's not going to happen. Vonage isn't "in trouble" or "doomed." If anything I think this will be great for Vonage -- a lot of SunRocket's customers WILL go over to Vonage. Wouldn't this create an increase in sales??? Why is that such a bad thing?

Are you saying Vonage is going to fail because of Verizon's patent BS??? LOL. Pahleese! Read the press releases. Vonage has appealed and will not give up on this fight. Verizon is full of $hit and even if they "win" their stupid "you stole our patent" crap, Vonage is already working on ways to stay in business without "violating" any stupid patent laws. I've been a Vonage customer for 3+ years and they have never (and I mean *never*) let me down. They are more reliable than AT&T's overpriced landline service!

Who cares about the damn stocks. Just because a company isn't doing the best on the stock market doesn't ALWAYS mean they are headed for failure. The idiots who are pulling out their stocks are the losers, not Vonage.

Really sick of this "paid off media." TechDirt is starting to fall into this category. How much is Verizon paying you to keep peddling negative press towards independant VOIP providers?? I'd curious to know...
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- TheDock22, 17 Jul 2007 @ 12:50pm
  
  Re: ARGH!!! Stop saying independant VOIP will fail
  Wow, sounds like the fanboys are out and about today trolling for VoIP news.
  
  I do think it is sad another VoIP has bit the dust. It is such a wonderful technology and many businesses find VoIP services can save money. I think Vonage will be able to get through their legal troubles alright though. Hopefully it pays off for them in the long run because I would hate to give up my Vonage service. Although I can't give them rave reviews since I have had a few routers from them die on me, but the support people were very friendly and helpful.
  
  Telephone companies need to find a better way to compete with VoIP and not just slap companies around with lawsuits.
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James Pollitt, 17 Jul 2007 @ 12:17pm

Failure of Sunrocket
As a Sunrocket customer I am shocked at the total collapse of Sunrocket. I have have the service for two years and for the most part I have been satisfied until the last 3 mos. I knew something was wrong when my service went in the toilet the last three months. I am still committed to Voip. I am also willing to go to Vonage.
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Simon, 17 Jul 2007 @ 1:30pm

The only place Vonage is going is up
So I'm sure a majority of you have heard about plans to increase the bandwidth of local broadband / fiber providers. I'm sure once that happens all the DSL users who pay an arm and a leg for their regular phone service, and brag that they pay a whopping $10/month less than you for internet access which is only 4 times slower than yours, will finally come to realize that they would be getting a much greater bundle if they were to finally abandon Quest/whoever and sign up for "Real" High Speed internet access and VOIP, and well, since Vonage is about the only VOIP company that actually takes the effort to advertise, the chances are it'll be safe for quite some time to come ;)
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Valor, 17 Jul 2007 @ 7:32pm

HUGE opportunity for Vonage..
It's a little late now, but it is a HUGE opportunity for Vonage--if they take it.

They should offer to honor any SunRocket Customer's time left on that they've already paid for, and port their number. Thing about it.. that's 200,000 free customers, overnight.

DreamHost did a similar thing when some other domain registrar lost their license.
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Pon, 18 Jul 2007 @ 4:26am

Viatalk is picking up Sunrockets Customers
I had Sunrocket for a year. I paid $199 for a year of unlimited calls with free equipment and cordless phones. They were a good company and I never had problems with my service. I had to dump them because I moved and they couldn't provide E911 in my new area. Now I've read on dslreports that Viatalk, a smaller voip provider, is offering to buy out existing Sunrocket contracts. Vonage better step up if they want a piece of that pie!
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jj, 18 Jul 2007 @ 8:01am

rip off artists technique
It was quite obvious they wouldn't make it because of their "$199 a year prepaid all you can call" offer. Scam artists always want to get your money first before providing the goods
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Greg andrew, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:04am

Actually, Vonage seems likely to cheaply pick up a significant number of customers for much less than they usually pay for customer acquisition; I think this will be a plus.

SunRocket sent me far more offers than any other VOIP company, but I never even considered them; the only thing they looked good at was marketing.
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HASABELRASOL IBRAHIM, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:16am

SUNROCKETS STOLEN MY MONEY
I HAVE BEEN CUSTOMER FOR SUNROCKETS FOR SIX MONTHS, I PAID IN ADAVANCE FOR WHOLE YEAR.AFTER THAT I PAY TWO LINES FROM THEM LIKE THREE MONTH AGO.SO, NOW I PAID THEM OVER $630 FOR 3 LINES AND TODAY I HAVE NO SERVICES AT ALL.
HASABELRASOL IBRHIM
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aaa, 17 Aug 2007 @ 8:27pm

SR rubbed the balance money on each contract from
All SunRocket(SR) Customer,

I was a SR customer, as I understand that SR played a bankruptcy game to the customer, it looks that they planned this game when they had a promotion for 199/yr plan, they rubbed the balance money on each contract from the customer, TeleBlend(TB) takes over everything from SR except contract, they just changed the company name from SR to TB.

Do you have any idea to handle this issue, it is not a small issue, it is a big,big,big, huge issue, it is related to 200,000 customers

We have to ask government to protect us to have it in fair, where is the government? where is the policeman? where is the lawyer? where is our congressman? did they know the issue or not?

Regards,
A SR Customer
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deane justin, 22 Aug 2007 @ 8:16pm

I use Primus backed Lingo VoIP. It works prettily well. Lingo is financially solid and offers unlimited calling plans to over 230 countries. I can recommend Lingo confidently to all SunRocket victims who are interested in getting special promos.
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