Vonage, the beleaguered VoIP service provider is in court today, trying to defend its position that it doesn’t infringe on Verizon’s patents. If Vonage loses, then things get really tough for the company, which has claimed that it has developed a workaround Verizon patents, and can still stay in business.
If the three Verizon patents – there are some questions about their validity – could cost Vonage about $66 million in back payments and 5.5% royalty. If workaround doesn’t pan out, there are some who are thinking bankruptcy and liquidation. Vonage (VG) is trading at $3 a share this morning.
These are desperate times for Vonage: it is losing a lot of customers, otherwise why else would it offer a $3.99 a month (for a year) deal to the defectors. Judi Sohn, a defecting customer, sums it up best when she writes, “Getting garbage at discount still stinks.”
I keep seeing people comment that the service sucks and personally I couldn’t be happier with it. I’ve used Vonage for six months now with only an hour of downtime and CS was excellent. They were even helpful in porting my number from Verizon when Verizon said they wouldn’t allow it because the number was supposedly tied to a toll free line but yet we had the number for over 20 years and it never was associated with any toll free services. Hopefully the workarounds don’t fall through.
I’ve been a Vonage customer since the first half of 2004. After some early snags, which were cleared up in the same year, I’ve been pretty happy with the service. Frankly, I find that the Vonage VoIP service is more reliable than my Internet service upon which it depends. My ISP frequently has DNS Server issues, but Vonage routes around them and I can almost always make calls from my Vonage home phone even when I can not surf the web. The call quality is good, although I avoid uploading or emailing large files during a call. I can receive the files without problem, but the upload side of my home internet service can easily get saturated causing packet losses and thus voice dropout. I’d sign up for Vonage again were it not for the it’s apparent and impending doom.
I’ve been using Vonage for over 3 years and my service, if anything, has gotten better over time. The Customer Service experiences I had were terrible however. When I first tried to install the service, the customer service rep tried to convince me the problems were because of my “Canadian” router. He seemed to believe “Made in Taiwon” products were different if they were in the USA or Canada…
I’ve been a Vonage customer for three years and have found it to be a reliable service with very few downtimes. I am not a heavy phone user so may have had less trouble than others. I will be very disappointed if I have to change to another provider after having such broad-based phone service at a very low price. We appreciate the free calls to Canada feature but have not had a chance to try the European connections. I hope that Vonage survives.
I have been using Vonage for MANY years. I was one of the first 10,000 customers and the service is just as good, if not better then when I first started using it. If you read Judi’s comments her real problem is with Comcast and their crappy connections. Unfortunately, Vonage gets the blame because it runs on top of it.
I will stay a Vonage customer until they either succeed and grow or fail. I am tired of people complaining about Verizon and the other big-boys and then running and ducking for cover right back to them when those same big-boys go out and try to crush someone like Vonage. Shame on you all!!!! There are monopolies with crappy services out there because you are allowing it. Have some guts! Vonage is demonstrating its guts in fighting Verizon and I for one support them.
Doug K.
I’m glad I switched from Vonage to a real land line. The quality is much better than Vonage.
If Vonage does collapse, I wonder if users will be able to port their virtual numbers. I know I can port my regular number to someone else, but hopefully the virtual number will be portable.
I’ve noticed as of lately there has been more Vonage commercials on TV. I also wonder how many of these potential customers realize Vonage may soon go away.
Like a number of other people who have commented, I’ve had nothing but good experiences in using Vonage as a phone service. I became a Vonage customer about 3 years ago when I moved from Iowa to Seattle and have never experienced an outage other than when my Comcast service was completely down. The call quality is decent and I’d never consider using a phone service that didn’t send me voicemails to my email again. I still don’t think VoIP is currently the best solution for everyone and you should examine your phone usage habits before switching from a traditional landline.
Are their any other alternatives available to Vonage which are not just US-based? & can be installed outside America?
My friend got a Vonage box with a Texas number and has been using for about 6 months it successfully on a DSL line in Costa Rica. I believe the contract says you’re not allowed to do that but who are they to know?
Switched to Vonage from Verizon 2.5+ years ago and I will never go back to Verizon. They could offer FIOS for free and I would not use Verizon ever again.
I have been a vonage customer since the beginning…..I am so fuming mad that our so called FREE country is no more free than a new mercedes benz that our gov’t officials can afford to buy! All big business cares about anymore is MONEY! Forget the People, just give me the money! I woulds rather do without a phone than go with our local phone service who cannot even provide me with a phone without disrupption of my internet service, (they don’t know why) or go with verizon or any of the others! I love Vonage and will stick by them until the end and God willing it won’t end!