It's on the wall....

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:04 pm Post subject:

gagoots wrote:

You know...even if Verizon wins the lawsuit and they have to pony up the money and pay a 5% royalty..wouldn't all of you happy Vonage customers be thrilled to pay an extra 5% to keep your service??
Worst case: Vonage looses some cash up front, and then they charge us the 5% and everyone's happy! The lawsuit goes away, Vonage is free to grow and what's the big deal?

ChrisBieda covered this, mostly, but just for clarification.

Verizon already won the lawsuit that gave them $58 million and 5.5% of sales. As I understand it, Verizon rejected that settlement and went for an injunction instead, as they had asked for $200 million plus $5 cash per customer per month, and they didn't want to "settle" for the reduced amount.

So, I assume if Vonage wanted to pay a Voip tax of $5 per customer per month, plus $200 million up front, Verizon might agree to license VoIP<->POTS gateway tech and the other patents to them.

All is not lost, however (though it may end up being). The appeals court apparently tends to interpret patents a little more narrowly than the primary courts. As long as Vonage can afford the lawyers, they haven't lost the case until the appeals court makes a ruling...

Posts: 113 · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 1:14 pm Post subject:

I guess we will just have to wait and see. It kind of ****.

Posts: 187 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 187

NateHoy wrote:

Verizon already won the lawsuit that gave them $58 million and 5.5% of sales.

I think it is 5.5% of "revenue from infringing activity" which could be quite different than "sales"

Mark

Posts: 233 · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject:

I must agree with those who are waiting it out. Jumping ship to another Voip would not do any good if Verizon were to get a government blessed monopoly. If Verizon is able to cut down Vonage then I guarantee they will move to the other VoIPs all in the name of becoming the monopoly. I am sticking around until they turn the lights out (which I don't think will happen).

Too many folks like to preach gloom and doom. Obviously they haven't had Verizon for their home telephone service.

Am I surprised that the workaround isn't going well? No. If you spread the definition of the patent to cover any method of connection to the old fashioned telephone system then it will be difficult. The other VoIPs will gladly let Vonage spend time and money on the effort. But, until the government realizes they are in the process of killing a step into the future then the dark ages are around the corner.

I guarantee that some of our foreign friends don't give a hoot about Verizon or their widely defined patents. You can bet that other countries will be using the technology and moving right along.

Posts: 241 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 241

Here's a rumor of a Sprint buyout of Vonage...

Posts: 409 · Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:04 am Post subject:

pdhenry wrote:

Here's a rumor of a Sprint buyout of Vonage...

If that were to happen I definitely would have mixed concerns.

First I am a Sprint Customer so just maybe the transaction would be a little smoother.

Second and on the downside Sprint has become such a Giant that the human factor in some issues such as billing ect. just don't exist, it's automated and can create a ton of issues when doing a change in plans as this one had happen first hand several times.

Posts: 241 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 241

Trinity wrote:

I made the move to InPhonex...a good solid company that does not base it's business on stealing other company's technologies and will not be affected by Verizon.

If it's Voip and it connects to the PSTN it uses Verizon's patents. Sorry.

Posts: 187 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 187

Trinity is a good example of what's known as a "troll"

someone who joins the forum to make a single, inflammatory post.

Mark

Posts: 172 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 19, 2006 Posts: 172

_______________________________________________
Who said being Beautiful automatically means one is dumb?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 17, 2007 Posts: 3

Doom and Gloom is hardly the point. Should the courts choose to reinstate the injunction, there's no telling what the hell is going to happen. One would hope the courts have enough sense to at least allow customers to go on take their numbers and run, as well as the time to do so. But there's certainly no guarantee that's the way it will play out. We could just as easily wake up one day with the switch off. A good number of us use Vonage with business accounts and can ill afford a disruption in service, or worse still, to have to get a new number and confuse countless customers in the interim. An outage of even a couple of hours can cost thousands of dollars. So I can certainly see why people are heading for the exits. It has nothing to do with love for big bad Verizon, or failing to stand up for the little guy who mismanaged their finances and failed to do a thorough patent check before forging forward with someone else's intellectual property. You can even search on Google these days. No excuse.

galion wrote:

I must agree with those who are waiting it out. Jumping ship to another Voip would not do any good if Verizon were to get a government blessed monopoly. If Verizon is able to cut down Vonage then I guarantee they will move to the other VoIPs all in the name of becoming the monopoly. I am sticking around until they turn the lights out (which I don't think will happen).

Too many folks like to preach gloom and doom. Obviously they haven't had Verizon for their home telephone service.

Am I surprised that the workaround isn't going well? No. If you spread the definition of the patent to cover any method of connection to the old fashioned telephone system then it will be difficult. The other VoIPs will gladly let Vonage spend time and money on the effort. But, until the government realizes they are in the process of killing a step into the future then the dark ages are around the corner.

I guarantee that some of our foreign friends don't give a hoot about Verizon or their widely defined patents. You can bet that other countries will be using the technology and moving right along.