Joe

AT&T vs Vonage

If I would have wanted to do business with AT&T I would have called them. Oh, That’s Right …. AT&T NEVER Had a plan for VOip.

They were too afraid of VOip because it requires REAL Customer Service instead of lies and lip service. And it allows “portability that AT&T will Never Tolerate!

Go Vonage! At least it happened now while AT&T is too busy ripping off it’s new celular customers to figure out what VOip is really worth.

Anonymous Coward

November 8, 2007 at 9:20 pm

Re: AT&T vs Vonage

Oh, That’s Right …. AT&T NEVER Had a plan for VOip.

Actually, AT&T does have a VoIP system. It’s called CallVantage and it isn’t doing very competing in the marketplace against companies like Vonage. That’s why you may have never heard of it. These days when you fail in the marketplace you go to court instead.

Bah who needs one (user link)

November 8, 2007 at 8:27 pm

Vonage made a big mistake. Once you have paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane…

Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com (user link)

November 8, 2007 at 8:41 pm

First is First

All that matters though is who actually had VoIP technology put on paper and had it patented first. I don’t see them giving up and settle unless they saw they could not win in court, especially for the amount they settled for.

Anonymous Coward

November 8, 2007 at 9:30 pm

Re: First is First

I don’t see them giving up and settle unless they saw they could not win in court, especially for the amount they settled for.

Companies often settle cases that they could have otherwise won in court if the cost of going to trial would exceed the cost of settling. That’s a situation that patent trolls often exploit to great profit.

boomhauer (profile)

November 8, 2007 at 11:31 pm

Re: Re: First is First

yes, and that cost includes damage to your reputation due to loss in stock value etc from having long-term unsettled disputes..

lawyers are the new terrorists. none of this should be happening in a free country.

It still blows my mind that the patent system put in place to give the small inventor a fighting change against large established competitors is the same one being used for exactly the opposite today. Deep pockets abuse the system to prevent any small startups from having a chance. But it is all because the patent system allows it.

Tempest

November 8, 2007 at 10:16 pm

Junk patents

“All that matters though is who actually had VoIP technology put on paper and had it patented first.”

See:

“the fact that there were so many patents covering the basic concepts of “VoIP” (even when there was so much prior art) should have been a warning sign that perhaps most of those patents were bogus”

Iron Chef

November 8, 2007 at 10:54 pm

Meaningless, like chasing the wind...

The only questions I have are:

Who had the guts to go to market with it?
Is that worthless?

Read my previous posts.

Dave Beck (profile)

November 9, 2007 at 3:55 am

What about the "Others"?

Now that Vonage has settled with the patent bearing telcos they should be set to take the market completely. The telco offerings are cheap (and worth every penny) but featureless. The “Other” VoIP operators haven’t settled with the patent owners and will get screwed if they make any money or any headway in market share. This leaves Vonage with the only long term product which does more than make cheap calls. Look at the feature list that comes with the basic package. They could double the price (there’s no competition) and it would still be a good deal to me.

Disclaimer- I’ve been a happy Vonage customer since Aug 2005. As an example, I use the forwarding options to ring all of my US and UK mobiles and desk phones, I answer the one I can get to.

Qwest (profile)

November 9, 2007 at 4:58 am

Re: What about the "Others"?

Well…Qwest has not had their shot at Vonage yet…I think we have at least one or two more patent trolls to deal with before Vonage can set back and relax.

Scott Horvath

November 9, 2007 at 4:40 am

Thank You Vonage.

The silver lining to this whole VoIP patent tussle is that Vonage did what others couldn’t…package a solid VoIP product for the mass market, packed full of features, for less than half the price of a typical land line service like Verizon. As Verizon, AT&T, etc starting perking up and taking notice that this small company is eating away at the profits they “could’ve” been making, they sued them. But they also started to compete and push out their own VoIP offerings at relatively comparable prices. Although Vonage has been sued to oblivion, they’ve certainly forced the market to compete. If Vonage survives this cash-carnage, all of the existing VoIP services will continue to compete and be forced to innovate.

So, thank you Vonage for doing what no one else could do…forcing cash-hungry telcos to realize that their “the customer doesn’t have a choice” business model no longer works and to make them actually have to compete. The underdog always reshapes the competitive landscape.

Chronno S. Trigger

November 9, 2007 at 6:51 am

Re: Thank You Vonage.

This is not a victory for anyone but the telcos. Once Vonage is gone they’ll go back to being the big dog on the block that douse nothing but sit on the porch.

Vonage wasn’t trying to rip anyone off, when was the last time you could say that about any of the telcos? When I first got vonage I was paying $14.99 a month, exactly what they advertised. That price didn’t rise until after Verizon forced the universal service fund onto them. I even got an E-Mail from Vonage explaining why that was added. The price went up again after Verizon sued.

Verizon only offers their VoIP service to those who have their FiOS. I know nothing about Sprint’s or AT&T’s, probably similar limitations.

So, taking all this into account, how will this cause anyone to compete?

Anonymous Coward

November 9, 2007 at 5:23 am

“Anyone Else Want To Squeeze Free Money….” a bad analysis; it’s not free since you need to invest a lot in a legal effort in oder to overcome the barrier to enty into the rip off business – so it’s a standard American business.

Overcast

November 9, 2007 at 6:34 am

Spin it how you want AT&T you still win the ‘you fail’ award.

I’m just glad I don’t have AT&T.

_Jon (user link)

November 9, 2007 at 6:45 am

“Might as well sue while Vonage’s wallet is wide open…”

I don’t think their “wallet” is the only thing wide open.
They might want to see a specialist about that anal leakage.

But I agree with the above comment that Vonage has survived just about every financial / patent hit and still has funding. If they (and their investors) are willing to make that kind of ‘up front’ payment, they must see a huge potential for payoff by staying in the market. Perhaps they could spin it as ‘buying a piece of the infrastructure’.

dianne

November 13, 2007 at 1:47 pm

sue vonage

Yes, I would certainly like to sue Vonage.
I returned their equipment,told them I couldn’t use the service.
I was charged over $477.00. Had to cancel my credit card.
I never used their service one day!
I’ve spoken to 20 “Supervisors”. None of whom speak English.
They are even charging me for the equipment I returned!

Rob

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