Vonage VoIP Forum Digest - April 25, 2007

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April 25, 2007

By Daniel Connor

Welcome to today's edition of the Vonage VoIP Forum Digest.

Today there is good news to share with you in the news section on Vonage and then would go to the forum where a member queries on call forwarding. Finally this would be followed by the stock price update.

In The News

Vonage Releases Public Awareness Website

Vonage today released a new public awareness website Free To Compete. The site is designed as a national grassroots campaign to educate and mobilize consumers about preserving freedom of choice in the telecommunications industry. It is well worth a visit.

Vonage Wins Court Stay, Stock Rises by 30 Percent

Vonage has won a permanent stay in the controversial Verizon patent case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. has granted a permanent stay of a trial judge's injunction that will remain effective during the entire appeal process. The Court has also allowed Vonage to continue signing up new customers. Vonage had secured a temporary stay from the appellate court early this month.

Vonage’s victory is being held as what the industry considers as a triumph of ethics. The VoIP industry associates at large and Vonage fans are confident that the company will sail through the litigation successfully. The management and over 2.2 million subscribers of Vonage are in a jubilant mood over the appeal court’s ruling. Vonage Founder and CEO Jeffrey Citron had said in a statement, "We have not infringed on any of Verizon's technology and remain optimistic that we will ultimately prevail." The Holmdel, NJ-based Vonage Holdings Corp. is being charged by Verizon Communications Inc. that it has infringing on three patents held by Verizon. Sharon O'Leary, the EVP and Chief Legal Officer of Vonage, in a statement to AllHeadlineNews has said, "We believe the original verdict was based on an erroneous claim construction -- meaning the patents in this case were defined in an overly broad and legally unprecedented way”.

Reacting over Tuesday’s verdict Citron said, "It's business as usual for us”. According to Staff Writer Ryan Kim of the San Francisco Chronicle, Vonage is the biggest phone provider in the field, with 2.2 million customers, and it was the first to go public last year. With its soaring popularity Vonage is expecting to increase its subscriber base to an enviable number within few months. According to Citron, "We remain focused on growing and strengthening our business and driving toward profitability."

After the appeal court’s decision was announced, Vonage stock price jumped by nearly 30 per cent. In the New York Stock Exchange traders pushed Vonage share to as high as $4.43 before it closed at $3.72 per share. Nearly 19 times the usual volume of Vonage shares were traded, making it one of the hottest stocks of the day.

In The Vonage VoIP Forum

Solarwarp begins a new thread titled ‘T-Mobile & Vonage users”.

He puts his query as, “I have T-Mobile Cellphones and Vonage. I want to forward my calls to my T-Mobile via regular call forwarding or SimulRing, but when I do, the caller id adds an extra "01" in front of the number and chops off the last 2 digits of the number on the phone display. The number is also shows the chopped off number on the billing statement online. Are there any T-Mobile and Vonage users that use SimulRing with the caller ID working properly on their T-Mobile phones? (Would anyone be interested in testing to see if it works?) (I have 4 T-Mobile lines on 2 separate account and each displays the Caller ID the same incorrect way. i.e. 0121055512 vice 2105551234) He adds saying, “Please let me know if this feature is working for any T-Mobile users, maybe you could add my cell to your Vonage account to test it out or I could add your T-Mobile cell to my Vonage SimulRing to test out.”

Xcrunxc replies Solarwrap saying, “Not sure why you didn't just add a reply to your already existing thread about this, but ok. I have some more info for you on this now. I would bet that your Vonage number is owned(leased by Vonage from) level 3 communications. Level 3, on inbound calls from PSTN(standard land lines) prefaces the number with a +(no idea why). Vonage will show this correctly, as will most other carriers as they know of this issue(It's not only level 3 that does this, they are just the only Vonage carrier that does, afaik) and have their systems set up to drop leading +'s.”

He continues saying “On a simulring your cell phone will get a call with the caller ID exactly as Vonage sees it, with the + and all. It seems t-mobile doesn't quite know what to do when it sees that + and gives you the erratic results you have reported in this and your last thread. Seems more like an issue on the t-mobile end then on the Vonage end to me, but thats just my opinion. If every other carrier is "smart" enough to drop that +, then why shouldn't t-mobile be able to? Unfortunately, I don't see Vonage, Level 3 or T-Mobile making system wide changes to fix this issue for you.”

Solarwrap immediately wrote, “FYI, when I dial a "+" on my cellphone, T-mobile sees that as a "011" for international access. If the last 2 digits of the number didn't get chopped off, I could deal with it. My phones are capable of displaying additional digits. (Phone book and redial don't work with this problem.) Why do I seem to be the only person that has this problem? It is difficult for me to believe that there are not other T-Mobile and Vonage customers that aren't experiencing the same annoying and dysfunctional caller id problem. But, until I can determine that it is not something specific to my Vonage or T-Mobile account, I don't know which way to proceed.”

Xcrunxc at this replied, “In your last thread you said you forwarded it to a non-T-Mobile line and the caller ID on simulring was correct. With this information and the info I posted above I believe one can make a pretty conclusive determination that it is T-Mobile not correctly interpreting the leading + in the caller ID field. I guess there is a slight chance that is is your cell phone changing it but with your varying results it would point to an overall T-Mobile issue. At the very least it rules Vonage out as the cause of the issue, as they are doing exactly what they are supposed to, passing the CID info along untouched. As an aside, I HAVE seen this issue before, that is why I had the info that I posted above. I am not however a T-Mobile customer to be able to test it myself, but you can be assured it is not specific to your Vonage account or to Vonage for that matter.” Solarwrap thanked him saying,

“According to AreaCodeDownload.com, the number is owned by Grande Communicaitons. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if this number were to call my cellphone directly it would have the same error on my cellphone display? Also other callers from this same phone exchange call me without the error as well. (I only get the caller display error when the calls are forwarded, simulring or failover when they come from Vonage.) That's my dilemma.” He continued saying, “But, I guess it doesn't matter if even if we identify the offending vendor if no one would have an interest in resolving the problem. I don't really care what the phone number is, I only intend on using Vonage for their SimulRing service; if another number provider in another area code could be selected and not produce the same results, I would be happy. If I get no where with resolving this, the answer for me would be to cancel Vonage and find a vendor that has the capability to simultaneously forward to multiple phones with a functional caller ID that works with T-Mobile.” Xcrunxc replied each of the queries separately.

He said, “Grande Communications is not a Vonage carrier. We are talking about the ownership of your Vonage number here. That site you linked is not correct by the way for any of my numbers. Go here and follow the prompts along, it will tell you the exact carrier of your number.” He adds, “No. Level 3 is the owner of your VONAGE number(Vonage does not own numbers, they simply lease/purchase them from CLEC's who still provide the backend for the number). They add the leading + to INBOUND caller ID. So if the number calls you directly, even if they are a Level 3 number, the caller ID format would be decided by the INBOUND carrier. The only way you would see this issue is if the call has first passed from a non-level 3 number to a level 3 number, then is finally forwarded out of the level 3 number with the caller ID kept intact.”

He further concludes saying, “Keep in mind that Level 3 is a huge CLEC who provides numbers to a multitude of VoIP and other carriers. If they are the regional CLEC of choice in your area than any VoIP carrier has the possibility of providing you with a Level 3 owned number, and a recurrence of this same issue depending on how they pass along CID info. The only sure way to get away from Level 3 would be to go to a landline carrier with their own PSTN infrastructure. Hope that clears up some of the confusion in your above post.”

Vonage Stock Report

On Tuesday, at the New York Stock Exchange, Vonage stock closed at, $3.72 a share. This is a rise of 0.83 cents (+28.72%) from that of Monday’s when the stock closed at $2.90 per share. The day’s lowest price was $2.83 a share. The total number of Vonage share traded on Tuesday is, 25,774,660.

Once again our Vonage Forum can be reached through vonage-forum.com/forum15.html">this link.

That's what's hot about Vonage today. Check with us tomorrow for our next edition of the Vonage VoIP Forum Digest.