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Vonage Now I am depressed again. Just about everywhere I look it seems everyone believes
Now I am depressed again. Just about everywhere I look it seems everyone believes Sprint is softening up Vonage for a purchase.
Om Malik's Broadband Blog
More on Sprint/Vonage Suit
A Vote for Sprint-Vonage
Maybe this marriage would help somebody on the financial side of things, but ask a lot of the people currently using Sprint local service and see what they think.
Of course it is highly possible that the marriage would work fine. After all, Vonage is using standard equipment (some tweaked like the PAP2), but the secret is their marketing. And after TommyDale's post I am beginning to believe that maybe Sprint's hiccups that I experienced could be isolated to the local service. A lot of companies keep their divisions separated more than they should. Makes for an easy sale.
From a technical standpoint I see a lot of people on this forum talk about tweaking a setting or finding the best combo of equipment. But, for "Average Joe Consumer" Vonage locks the PAP2 and a lot of people can put this thing together in an off-the-shelf solution within 15 to 20 minutes. Just look at Time Warner's commercial with the guy listening to the dial tone make the same sound as his old dial tone. I think Time Warner sees the future now.
Of course, for Vonage to keep customers happy the customer must have a reliable ISP. Vonage has the advantage because they ride on someone else's media. Yes, it can be frustrating when the customer calls and blames Vonage for a broadband outage. But the big broadband companies are already collecting a fee to keep their service up and running so they are going to keep downtime to a minimum no matter who is handling communications. (Hint: Mr. Cable Company will need to drop his price on Voip eventually.)
At one time I saw AT&T Callvantage as the biggest threat to Vonage other than cable companies selling direct. But, to my surprise, SBC isn't marketing Callvantage heavily.
I see people complain about the lack of anonymous call rejection at Vonage. But, look at the whole package verses price. Vonage has a whole lot more that outweighs anonymous call rejection, especially when considering price. And a couple of entrepreneurs have already provided a Vonage compatible anonymous call rejection solution in a small box that has a lot of flexibility.
So here we have a Voip company that has forged forward with a unique marketing approach, ease of use, and a little bit of tweak room for those who like tuning up their equipment. This luck reminds me more of the early days of oil wells than the dot com boom.
So will somebody beat Sprint to the punch and make a bid for this "diamond in the rough"? Or will Vonage hang in for the long haul? I guess that depends on the philosophy of Vonage founder Jeff Citron and his investors. But if their investment strategy is on target as their marketing has been, I suspect money will be made. My suggestion to the baby Bells: keep an eye on Sprint. You may want to get your bid in now. The key is timing and if you want to play ball with Sprint. Don't forget Sprint has been brewing this situation for a couple of years. Meanwhile Jeff and company have some serious contemplation facing them.
In the end, if we can keep Sprint from running up the cost of Voip, we users may become beneficiaries in this transaction. It could turn out that Vonage becomes so attractive the boom not only helps Vonage but feeds the industry as a whole. I had a fuse salesman tell me one time that his competition wasn't the other fuse manufacturers. He said his competition was the manufacturers of circuit breakers.
One last thought. I hope the government doesn't decide to squash the Voip market to protect the copper market. Because when this tiger gets loose (everyone sees the advantage) the price of copper is going to plummet as we rip down all those unused bundles of cable, even if some are multiplexed.
Read The Full Thread: Sprint Nextel sues Vonage over VOIP patents
• Sprint Nextel sues Vonage over VOIP patents
Tue Oct 4, 2005 05:12 PM ET
By
• Uh, are they trying to say the Sprint invented SIP? I have read three articles on
• Now that is funny. I shouldn't say this, but Sprint was my local provider in my previous
• Sprint can go fart peas at the moon.
• Sounds like Sprint is afraid of competition. So they are trying to put the companies
• I live in an area served by Sprint local telephone service. Their VoIP service
• I also have Sprint for a land line at one of my residences as well as for land-line
• I wondered over to the Sprint website just to see their side of the story. (The site
• That was no rumor about Sprint shedding the local telco business. It is a fact.
• I wonder if this is one of the patents
Broadband telecommunications system
galion posted "Now I am depressed again. Just about everywhere I look it seems everyone believes" on 10/10/2005 |
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