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Not a word, I know, but maybe it'll catch on and become one. Like Stephen Colbert's "truthiness."
GigaOM's Paul Kaputska is so spot on with his erudite points about why Vonage has not become a more serious player in the SMB (Small and Medium Business) segment.
"While Vonage still does offer a Small Business Premium […]
Written by Russell Shaw on February 21st, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and General and Products and Research.
Written by Russell Shaw on January 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 25th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 18th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 15th, 2007 with no comments.
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Vonage was at CES, happy-talking its new baby service bundle (as opposed to the powerful triple and quadruple play stuff)with EarthLink's muni Wi-Fi. And oh yes, seen at their booth the Frog Design router/access point combo- one designed by Vonage and FD rather than simply sent down the pipe by a Cisco/Linksys or Motorola- is pretty cool […]
Written by Russell Shaw on January 12th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 10th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 9th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on January 5th, 2007 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on December 15th, 2006 with no comments.
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According to a report posted yesterday on the website of WBAY-TV, Green Bay, Wisc., a "911" ambulance request call placed over a Vonage line wound up being routed to the wrong county Tuesday.
The call originated from a house in Menasha, Wisc. which is in Winnebago County. The person requesting the ambulance was a Vonage […]
Written by Russell Shaw on December 8th, 2006 with no comments.
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Two quotes from Vonage Chairman and Chief Strategist Jeffrey Citron's presentation at the Reuters Media Summit Friday afternoon are definitive indicators of Vonage's future plans.
The first is that Vonage's technology could be embedded in near-future generations of Wi-Fi enabled handsets laptops (which almost all new laptops are these days).
"We expect next year, 2007, to […]
Written by Russell Shaw on December 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on November 30th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on November 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on November 17th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and Skype and General and Providers and Packet 8 and Gizmo Project.
Written by Russell Shaw on November 17th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on November 15th, 2006 with no comments.
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Everyone's favourite whipping VoIP whipping boy, Vonage, posted third-quarter results that left a lot to be desired. Churn climbed to 2.6% from 2.3% in the second quarter, the cost of acquiring a new customer rose to $254 from $239, while the number of net new subscribers was 205,000 compared with 256,000 in Q2. While the company had a smaller loss ($62-million) than analysts expected, the investment community was disappointed with guidance of 2.2 million to 2.3 million new users in 2006, compared with a previous estimate of 2.3 million to 2.4 million. The company now has 2.05 million customers, compared with 1.85 million at the end of Q2 and 1.06 million a year earlier. Vonage shares were down 1% in early-morning trading to $6.80 (compared with the 52-week low of $6.30). The question facing investors is whether Vonage can gain enough critical mass and reduce marketing/acquisition costs so it can compete with the cablecos, which are aggressively gaining market share.
Written by Mark Evans on November 2nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on October 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and Skype and General and yahoo and AOL.
Written by Russell Shaw on October 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on October 2nd, 2006 with no comments.
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VoIP News has a well-thought out post about Vonage, complete with financials, estimates, and most interestingly the odds on several scenarios occuring. These scenarios are pretty much in line with what I've been saying about Vonage's future paths. Vonage is one of the first (if not the first) VoIP provider to go public, and that automatically raises their profile.
That means they are a threat to traditional telcos from the telcos' perspective for many reasons. And for those countries that regularly wiretap phone calls, VoIP is also a threat to intelligence and law enforcement agencies. CALEA in the US stipulates that regular telecommunications has to have a backdoor for recording calls, even though experts question whether CALEA can be implemented for VoIP.
So the question is why aren't other companies going through the same sort of thing, if VoIP is such a threat? Well, just my opinion, but besides Vonage being one of few publicly-traded VoIP providers (not hardware manufacturers), I think it would be kind of obvious if every VoIP provider was having problems. If there is in fact intentional financial and technical sabotage, it has to be subtle and not widespread..
Written by ewriter on September 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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Vonage: Charging To Cancel Accounts
Andy Abramson says Vonage charged him to cancel his account, but explains how he was able to keep his phone number (a form of phone number portability). The VoIP Girl also cancelled her Vonage account, as did Tom Keating,
who recorded his call to customer service. What is this? VoIP
bloggers-cancel-Vonage week? Current cancellations not withstanding,
Vonage still holds the most VoIP market share.
Rebtel Picks Up $20M In VC
Rebtel Networks in Stockholm just picked up US$20M in Series A funding from Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital. [via Light Reading]
Skype And eBay Facing Civil Suit
Why a civil suit I don't know, but Skype
and eBay are facing one from a company called Mangosoft Intellectual
Property, a division of Mangosoft, regarding a supposed patent
infringement. [via The VoIP Weblog]
Smart Telecom Lays Off 180 People
While Comcast, the US cable company leading in the cable VoIP subscriber race, is planning to hire 4000 people,
UK's Smart Telecom just laid off 180 people last week. There are
another 70 jobs threatened. The company is taking a loan from a
co-founder and major shareholder to keep going, and needs more to
upgrade its broadband infrastructure. [via The Register UK]
Written by ewriter on September 28th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Dal on September 27th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on September 26th, 2006 with no comments.
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I thought I would share my interesting experience with cancelling my Vonage service. I recorded the entire call, including the traversal over their IVR to reach an agent. Surprisingly, I was connected pretty quickly to an agent. I was expecting a much longer hold time. Perhaps customers leaving Vonage are given a higher priority in the queue, lest the customer become more irate with less chance of convincing the customer to stay?Continue reading Cancelling Vonage Difficulties...
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Tags: voip, vonage
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 26th, 2006 with no comments.
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) I hope to transcribe the call and attach the actually MP3 recording of the call later today. So stay tuned! Great stuff!
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Tags: amazon, voip, vonage
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 26th, 2006 with no comments.
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A recent study [via SDA Asia] by Keynote Systems indicates that the IP phone call quality of the twelve leading VoIP providers is better than that of regular telecoms. In general, VoIP quality has improved since last December. The study compares Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger (soft phone) against 11 VoIP providers from both pure play (adapter-based hard VoIP) and broadband (digital cable) categories.
The list of VoIP providers, based on subscriber numbers, consists of AT&T, Comcast, Lingo, Packet8, Skype, SunRocket, TimeWarner Cable, TrueVoice, Verizon, Vonage, Vonics and the aforementioned Messenger. A separate but related study compares end-user experience of Messenger and Skype based on usage in New York and San Francisco areas.
According to the first report, where VoIP seems to lag behind PSTN is in audio delay. However, I think that as more powerful computer chips and voice processing algorithms are employed, this will improve as well, in all categories. The full report is available for purchase.
Keynote, by the way, has several free white papers (registration required) on VoIP and voice data applications in their resource library. A couple of the papers discuss "load testing" for websites and web applications. I haven't read them yet, however, I've quickly scanned the one entitled "Enterprise Load Testing for Web Applications". While it is a technical paper in terms of topic, it seems accessible to someone comfortable around computers and savvy enough with some of the intracies of the Internet and web servers.
Proper load testing and load balancing on larger VoIP telephony systems will definitely go a long way towards keeping call quality high. What's more, load-balanced VoIP systems are less susceptible to DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.
Written by ewriter on September 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and Software and Networks and Residential VoIP.
This is just a quick summary on the types of Internet service and the types of VoIP calling that result.
Types of Internet service:
I get the feeling I'm forgetting something, but I can't think what. You can achieve VoIP calling from all three types of Internet service.
Types of VoIP calling:
Written by ewriter on September 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
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Yesterday, I reflected briefly on Alarm.com's signing of SunRocket as a partner, who follow Vonage, the first to sign. Like other competitors InnovAlarm and NextAlarm, Alarm.com offers home security alarm services using VoIP for the communications component. Garrett Smith thinks that this sort of additional VoIP-based service might give pure play VoIP providers such as SunRocket and Vonage a bit more competitive edge, by offering their own "triple play" of services, compared to broadband providers.
While I vaguely said something similar, I still feel that cable providers have the edge, especially considering that Alarm.com is target this type of VoIP provider next for partners. PhoneBoy weighs in, basically agreeing, and says any advantage will be minimal because pure plays won't be offering anything unique.
That doesn't mean that there isn't any market for pure play VoIP. Anyone who does not have or want a computer (there are such people) might prefer to opt for a service such as Vonage, were they forced to change from traditional telephony. Or simply want to save on long-distance calls.
Written by ewriter on September 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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Tags: alarm.com, sunrocket, voip, vonage
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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Alarm.com, a home security service that uses VoIP as a means of communication, signed their second partner, SunRocket. Earlier this year, they announced their first partnership with Vonage. [via PC Mag] Vonage recently announced that they would be providing optional VoIP installations courtesy of a third party. Now if Vonage is smart (or maybe Alarm.com?), they'll work out a package deal for customers whereby they can have both their VoIP and Alarm.com's security system installed simultaneously.
While both current partners are "pure play" VoIP providers, Alarm.com is also aiming at partnerships with ISPs next. ISPs, of course, offer "triple play" services: television programming, Internet access, and VoIP. The PC Mag article talks about quad-tier services, which would include cellular phone service, and refers to Alarm.com's service as being like a fifth tier for ISPs.
A similar VoIP-based security alarm service is being offered by InnovAlarm, who will be getting US$10M in venture capital.
Written by ewriter on September 20th, 2006 with no comments.
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Vonage may be taking a drubbing in the stock market since going IPO, but Israel's BigBand Networks Inc. may be going IPO anyway. Some experts are questioning the wisdom of VoIP companies going IPO, but BigBand is a cable equipment provider that sells broadband access and VoIP tech. So they're in a different niche than a company like Vonage. Light Reading's discussion pegs the potential IPO value at US$500M.
That's not so much money that someone might not decide to buy them out. It'd certainly be a good investment, generally speaking. And with all the other VoIP acquisitions going on (such as ATG's acquiring of eStara [TMC Net]), there might be a suitor waiting in the wings. Wake up, Microsoft. Here's an opportunity for you to branch out and prop up your stock - considering you're showing some interest in VoIP. In fact, why wait until they get listed on the NASDAQ. BigBand has not yet filed an S-1 form with the SEC. Make'em an offer they can't refuse.
Written by ewriter on September 19th, 2006 with no comments.
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Having never used services like Vonage, I can't tell you about any experiences trying to install any necessary hardware. But I can tell you that even for a long-time computer person like myself, I occasionally run into some weird glitch while trying to install hardware related to my computer - such as my wireless router for Internet access around the house.
So anyone just a little reluctant to use Vonage and similar true VoIP providers will be happy to know that the company will be offering installations [ZDNet IP Telephony VoIP] courtesy of a new deal with Endeavour Telecom. Installation costs start at US$99.95 and are aimed at both residential and business customers. Endeavour field techs will represent themselves as being from Vonage, which will be a psychological plus for most people.
As Russell Shaw says (link above), this deal will be a good thing for Vonage. Not only will this increase the chances of new customers, but support calls will be likely be reduced, and only those customers who feel they need the service have to pay for it. And considering that Vonage is reputedly cutting back on their advertising campaign, despite reaching a 2 million customer milestone, it's little things like this that might make the difference between gaining customers or losing them. Of course, adding services like ReVos long-distance calling packages (courtesy of RNK Telecom) will also help.
Written by ewriter on September 15th, 2006 with no comments.
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In addition to Los Angeles, Vonage recently turned up E911 at more than 125 local run emergency call centers across the U.S. in less than one month -- bringing the total percentage of Vonage U.S. subscriber lines that have E911 to over 89 percent.
Vonage's nomadic E911 solution gives customers the ability to reach a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), or 911 center, through the dedicated 911 network infrastructure. With Vonage's nomadic E911 solution, a customer's call is automatically routed to the appropriate 911 center, with the caller's registered street address and telephone number appearing on the dispatcher screen -- regardless of where or what exchange they are calling from. Vonage was the first to provide nomadic VoIP E911 in California, and will continue to turn up and test new PSAPs that are VoIP-ready every day.
"Turning up Los Angeles is a tremendous step for Vonage, as thousands more subscriber lines in California, one of Vonage's largest markets, now have full E911 capability," said Vonage CEO Mike Snyder. "In less than one month, Vonage equipped more than 100 locally run calling centers with E911. Vonage will continue to work with the FCC, regulators Congress and public safety officials until PSAPs across the nation are equipped with E911."
Since August 21, 2006, Vonage has added the following counties to its list of those with E911 capabilities -- bringing the total number of calling centers with emergency 911 service to over 5700.
Source: Vonage
Written by Dal on September 15th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on September 13th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on September 12th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on September 12th, 2006 with no comments.
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RNK Telecom Inc. of the Massachusetts region is launching [Biz Journals]their new consumer VoIP service, ReVos, which gives subscribers low-cost calls to over 40 countries. They also get a number of features including a virtual number and IP calls from a cell phone. The company sells both prepaid phone cards and wholesale services. Vonage and Packet8 are both customers.
In the Biz Journal's article, they thank Vonage for "doing all that premarketing". Vonage spends over US$20 M per month in advertising, although word is that their annoying TV ads are disappearing. It's been a while since I've seen one, and at least one other VoIP blogger said the same thing a few days ago.
I guess with the bottom expected to drop out of calling cards, this is a good move. I feel sorry for all the mom and pop stores that are going to lose yet another source of low-margin income. But I don't see them selling VoIP services - unless they get VoIP phone booths.
Written by ewriter on September 11th, 2006 with no comments.
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Vonage Needs To Watch Their Back
Vonage may have passed the two million subscriber mark, but apparently cable providers aren't too far behind. Om Malik adds that Vonage has already spent over half a billion dollars to get those 2 mln customers, but needs 3 mln more to make a profit.
New Yahoo Messenger Plugin: Typing East Indian Scripts
For our East Indian readers, you may like to check out the ChitChat plugin from Vishal Monpara for Yahoo! Messenger 8. With it, you can type text in eight different East Indian scripts including Hindi.
Oregon: Wi-Fi Investment Leader
According to a study of all 50 US states, Oregon leads in Wi-Fi investments.
US East Coast VoIP Services
The
areas of Boston, New York, Philly, and D.C. will have new VoIP services
offered to SMBs (Small and Medium Business, aka SMEs) from a
partnership formed by BroadSoft, Inc., and mindSHIFT Technologies.
Broadsoft is a VoIP app software provider and mindSHIFT is a managed
services provider. The VoIP service will work through hosted PBXes.
[via New Telephony]
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Editor's Note: I hope this signals a turn around from all the mishaps so far. I am hoping Vonage doesn't go down in a blazing ball of fire. We need people like Vonage to put pressure on the baby bells to keep pricing low.
Vonage said Tuesday it had surpassed the two million customer mark, maintaining its position as the largest American VoIP communications provider. However, the company's recent disaster surrounding its IPO, along with slowing subscriber additions, have analysts saying that the company may be in for some rough times ahead.
The company ended the second quarter with 1.8 million lines of service. A UBS research report said that this represented a slowdown from 2,800 new adds per day to 2,200. Analysts have further said that competition from cable providers like Comcast, as well as smaller firms who are undercutting Vonage's prices, may begin to drag on the company's bottom line.
Source: Beta News
Written by Dal on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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Given Jeffery Citron’s previous strategy of drag racing (getting in early, spending huge on customer aquistion, branding, etc) is in full effect at Vonage. This strategy in theory (and many times in reality) thwarts competition as it causes competitors to have to continue to spend heavy on customer acquistion (as much as two to three times what Vonage initially had to spend) while simultaniously Vonage will lower their marketing costs, which will increase cash flow, profitability, etc. This should “protect” Vonage because the barriers to entry and cost to compete are too high for most companies. It has worked before for Jeffery Citron and given that I have experienced a recent decrease in visible marketing, the second phase could very well be in play.
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Tags: andy abramson, commercials, tv, vonage
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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The Dixons Store Group (DSG) recently pulled the plug [VNUNet] on their Freetalk VoIP service, after barely a year. Oddly enough, they told existing customers they'd be switched over to Vonage, an obvious competitor. The company feels the VoIP market hasn't "lived up to its expectations".
Sure there's a lot of competition, and sure some providers won't survive long. But if they have such a short term view as this, their failure is guaranteed. They can't expect to make money on VoIP in just one year. The revenue potential in VoIP is not in service but in hardware (phones, adapters, IP PBXes), consulting, and enterprise integration. There is also a great deal of potential in voice data applications.
For those companies focused on only a residential market, it's the hardware where you'll make any real money. If you sell only service, you might as well just hand your customer list over to your nearest competitor. Of course, cable providers do have the advantage of being able to offer the triple-play services - TV, internet, telephone. Other types of VoIP providers better be innovative if they want to live long enough in the market to compete.
Written by ewriter on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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. But then they called me back 30 minutes later when they realized that they couldn’t port the number since I was outside the rate center. My heart 
. I was already aware that I could port my Vonage phone number to Sunrocket or Lingo if I so desired, but I'm trying to move away from "single play" VoIP providers.TrackBack (0) | Comments (2) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Number Portability problems
Tags: charter voice, directv, double play, number portability, sbc, triple play, voip, vonageComments on this Entry:
(Michael on Sep 5, 2006 3:32 PM) So, you were able to port the number to SBC?? If yes, is that because SBC provides service to the geographic area of you number, whereas Charter does not?
(Tom Keating on Sep 5, 2006 4:00 PM) No, I wasn't able to port my number. I lose my number. I clarified my original post.
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Russell Shaw on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and General and Charter Communications and SBC-AT&T.
Written by Russell Shaw on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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This is NOT a blog about women, or even necessarily about women who use VOIP services – I mean how boring is that. I called it The VOIP Girl because well I'm a gal. And I want to write about this industry. That's about it. What really prompted me to get going however, is the fact that there are no women commentators on this subject. I'm curious to see if my perspective will be any different.
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Tags: thevoipgirl.com, voip, voipgirl, vonage
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 5th, 2006 with no comments.
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Nothing like the venerable New York Times to jump-start a public relations campaign. The newspaper provided Vonage with some invaluable coverage by doing an interview with chairman - and P.R. savvy - Jeff Citron. Here are the highlights:
- On how he felt after the stock dropped like a stone following its $17-a-share IPO earlier this year: “I was a little, I guess, confused." Confused? Citron's confused by how investors soured on the company's prospects in light of large losses, huge marketing expenses and increasingly intense competition from cablecos?
- Vonage is now in "good shape". Hmmm, I wonder how Citron defines good shape. If it's by the number of subscribers, I guess Vonage is doing okay given it will soon announce it has two million customers. But what about churn, which compels Vonage to spend more than $300-million on marketing?
- "We definitely believe the shares were undervalued" in explaining his decision to buy 188,000 shares for $1.3-million. After losing two-thirds of their value, Vonage was either under-valued or maybe just trading where it should. Don't give Citron credit for stepping up to make a "value" buy. It was a P.R. move to reassure investors, particularly those who still held their IPO shares, analysts and customers.
- “I want nothing. I’m just generally a very happy guy.†Nice way for the NYT to end the story but why wouldn't Citron be happy. He's made a mint off Vonage despite the stock's performance. He has also hit the entrepreneurial jackpot twice before - Island ECN and Datek. We could all be so lucky.
One more thing: Vonage shares closed Friday at $8.90, which means they have lost 47% since the IPO hit the street. Andy Abramson, who knows the P.R. and VoIP industries like the back of his hand, calls the NYT story "pure spin control". 21Talks also makes some good points, particularly about one analysts believes Vonage needs five million customers to be profitable.
Written by Mark Evans on September 4th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage and Main Page and VOIP Services, Competition.
IP & Democracy has their take on a New York Times interview with Jeffrey Citron, co-founder, chief strategist and former CEO of troubled hard VoIP provider Vonage. An earlier post from us indicated that they were still #1 in the VoIP market. Citron, who at one point had paper assets of a half billion dollars, ceased to be the CEO in February due to problems with the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission).
Interestingly, we reported back in Sep 2005 that Vonage might be the next target of takeover in the VoIP industry, after eBay purchased Skype for around US$2.6 B. I was not myself aware of this until now, but I've been saying the same thing for months. Now that Vonage stock has been showing some signs of life lately, maybe something interesting is afoot.
Written by ewriter on September 4th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Vonage.
