With Little Else To Celebrate, Vonage Dances On Sunrocket's Grave

from the comeuppance dept

Wed, Jul 25th 2007 4:07pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Vonage has been having a rough go of it lately, so apparently the company has to take whatever small victories it can. A spokesman for the company recently bragged that it was responsible for the demise of Sunrocket, the #2 independent VoIP operator. In a sense, the company is correct in that the cutthroat price competition in this space is what killed Sunrocket. But Vonage is struggling itself for the same reasons. From a business model perspective, there wasn't much of a difference between Vonage and Sunrocket, except that Vonage seemed to spend way more on advertising. By going out of its way to highlight Sunrocket's woes, the company is pretty much reminding everyone that it's in the exact same boat.

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Filed Under: voip
Companies: sunrocket, vonage

8 Comments

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kuronoir, 25 Jul 2007 @ 4:09pm

wait I have vonage
you mean vonage isn't a well run cutting edge corporation? that can't be true, they have commercials on tv!!
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2007 @ 4:20pm

So...
does that mean that if Verizon manages to sue Vonage into nothingness that Verizon will have a parade to brag that they were responsible for the end of Vonage.
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spencermatthewp, 25 Jul 2007 @ 4:23pm

As a former SunRocket Customer
I considered Vonage for about 14 seconds when I learned of the demise of my beloved VOIP provider. ( Honestly, except for them folding the way they did, I cannot say a single bad thing about SunRocket.) There was just something that said I should go with someone a little more established (packet8). Perhaps its all I've read all the problems vonage has had as of late, The hugely overblown advertising budget, And the fact that they are about a half step away from not being allowed to take on new customers again. It seems to me that Vonage is in the same position as SunRocket only worse since they are the bigger target of the baby bells.
I hope someone at vonage gets a little wiser in the near future, I'd hate to see them go down. The market needs the competition. If baby bell is successful in knocking of another VOIP provider it may not be long until we are forced back into ridiculous prices for phone service.
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welltempered, 25 Jul 2007 @ 4:56pm

Vonage
I went back to Vonage simply because they have over 2 million payong customers. That's a lot of revenue every month.I got somewhat burned by Sunrocket because I paid the $199 upfront but had it for a year, a big savings over vonage. I think you'll find them cutting back on advertising now that Sunrocket is out of the way.
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John Doe, 25 Jul 2007 @ 6:09pm

If Vonage ever goes under, I hope they give better notice then SunRocket. Because I'll be oh so piss if they did what sunny did.
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Overcast, 25 Jul 2007 @ 7:19pm

One should be more careful when celebrating the demise of a company in the same business. When - more than likely, it's overall demand that caused the demise.
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methylamine, 26 Jul 2007 @ 11:52am

stupid move from Vonage, but I do love their servi
I've had a very, very good 2-3 years with Vonage; I was a pretty early adopter, and it's been extremely reliable. Their customer service is pretty good too; not outstanding, but they have corrected problems on my horribly complex network.

I *really hope* that at least one non-monstrous VOIP provider stays in business and thrives.

I would rather die than use Comcast, which just acquired TimeWarner's cable--not sure if that was nationwide, but Houston just switched over and they make the US post office look like FedEx...hour-long lines, phones so busy they don't even answer, etc.
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Uncle Sam, 1 Aug 2007 @ 11:47am

Re: stupid move from Vonage, but I do love their s
and they make the US post office look like FedEx...hour-long lines, phones so busy they don't even answer, etc.
Hey, the USPS and Fedex contractually work together. Outside your post office there may be a Fedex collection box.
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