Judge Offers Plan to Keep Vonage Afloat
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Vonage, an Internet phone company, may receive a temporary lifeline as it struggles to survive a patent dispute with Verizon Communications.
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Vonage Holdings and Nortel Networks have preliminarily agreed to cross-license several patents, ending a dispute between the companies without any monetary payments, Vonage said Monday.All claims relating to past damages as well as remaining payments will be dismissed, the company said. Documents sealing the agreement have not yet been finalized.The agreement is a minor victory for Vonage. The company has settled or reached tentative agreements in three other patent disputes related to VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and other telecommunications technology for what could ultimately reach $239 million in payments.Vonage tentatively agreed last month to&#160;settle a patent infringement lawsuit filed by rival AT&amp;T&#160;for $39 million. Prior to that deal, Vonage had reached&#160;settlements with Sprint Nextel&#160;for $80 million and&#160;with Verizon Communications&#160;for $80 million to $120 million, depending on the results of an appeal.&#160;
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US communications regulators on Tuesday exempted Internet telephone services from certain state oversight, a boon for Vonage Holdings Corp.
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Shortly after being ordered to pay $58 million to Verizon in a patent suit, voice-over-the-internet phone service Vonage has now been ordered to pay $69.5 million to Sprint Nextel.
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(InfoWorld) - Vonage Holdings lost less money in the fourth quarter of 2006 than a year earlier, but it didn't attract as many new subscribers to its VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service despite heavy marketing. The company, a pioneer in selling phone service that uses packet data networks instead of traditional circuits, now faces competition from cable operators and the established telecommunications carriers. The big players recognize the potential cost benefits of the technology as well as its flexibility, including the ability to give subscribers a browser-based portal for using voice mail and changing service preferences. But those big players are also bundling VOIP with other services, such as broadband Internet access and TV. Vonage ended the fourth quarter with a net gain of 166,267 subscriber lines, bringing its customer base to more than 2.2 million. But that was less than the 204,591 subscribers it gained the previous quarter as well as its gain in the fourth quarter of 2005, when it added 207,252 subscribers. Revenue soared to $181 million, up 91 percent from a year earlier, and the company's net loss narrowed. Vonage lost $65 million, or $0.42 per share, compared with a loss of $72 million in the fourth quarter of 2005. The company's margins also improved, according to a statement Thursday. But Vonage has built its business on being an early mover and drawing a big base of customers that can later drive profits. The company's marketing costs still amounted to 53 percent of revenue in the fourth quarter, although this was down from 71 percent a year earlier. Vonage still expects to reach its goal of making an operating profit, adjusted for certain factors, as early as the first quarter of 2008, the statement said. The company's stock (VG) dropped sharply after its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange last May at $17. Among other things, investors worried about the company's losses and growing competition. On Thursday afternoon local time, the share price was down $0.42 at $5.42. Though the future is cloudy for dedicated VOIP companies, VOIP itself is looming larger in major service providers' plans, according to IDC analyst Will Stofega. For example, mobile operators are looking at VOIP overÂ combined cell and Wi-Fi phonesÂ as a way to improve in-home coverage without the expense of beefing up the cellular network itself. However, it's too soon to count out Vonage. The company has started to focus on small and medium-size businesses, where it faces less competition from cable operators, Stofega said. Consumers may also see providers such as Vonage get into mobility themselves. Vonage could buy minutes from a cellular carrier and offer a service that lets subscribers hop on to Vonage via Wi-Fi at home, Stofega said. It has no traditional cellular minutes business to protect and could move early, jump-starting the trend, he added. The company could also team up with public hotspot providers or a municipal Wi-Fi operator such as EarthLink to provide mobile service over those networks, he added. But both of these are hard ways to make a profit, Stofega said.
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Opinion: SIPphone&#39;s one good point is that Vonage-only router/terminal adapters must say Vonage on the boxâand Vonage seems to be hurrying to do that consistently.
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Vonage, which helped popularize Internet telephone calling, faces brutal competitive pressure from bigger telecommunications players.
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Internet telephone services on  Tuesday were insulated from many state regulations by U.S.  communications officials, a boon for upstart Vonage Holdings  Corp. and others aggressively pushing the new service.
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Jeff Pulver, co-founder of VoIP service Vonage is offering a total of 40,000 of his own dollars to aspiring Internet TV producers and Video Bloggers who can best explain "How to Watch Internet TV."
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Troubled VoIP service provider Vonage is rolling out new products and services at the Consumer Electronics Show in a bid to reverse its downward spiral.Intellectual property lawsuits brought by Nortel, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&amp;T have distracted Vonage for the past year. During that time, customer acquisition slowed, and defections grew to 3 percent in the third quarter last year.But Vonage says it is ready to turn a corner. The suits were a weapon that the phone companies used to defend their businesses in the face of competition from Vonage, said Jeffrey Citron, chairman, chief strategist and interim CEO at Vonage. &quot;It was a successful strategy. It distracted us and slowed us down,&quot; he said. &quot;Instead of rolling out MyVonage six months ago, we were dealing with workarounds.&quot; MyVonage is the name of a new campaign at the company to introduce a host of services geared toward customer lifestyles.While the lawsuits were ongoing, the company was developing workaround technology that would allow its business to move forward without infringing on the relevant patents. Vonage has now settled all four major lawsuits against it.That has left Vonage free to spend more time focusing on its business, said Citron. It hired new engineers who designed a router, the first time Vonage will sell its own router rather than one from Cisco or Motorola.The router has an unusual feature: a screen. It displays information about problems that the modem might have in plain language. For instance, rather than showing a flashing light like most routers, this one displays words telling users that the Ethernet cable is unplugged.New customers will be able to buy the V-Portal router online starting Wednesday for $9.99 after rebates.In addition to the new router, Vonage is beginning to roll out many new features that it is showcasing at alpha.vonage.com. For instance, customers can now use voice-activated dialing, simply speaking a name to place a call. Customers can also send a voice message to anyone via e-mail. The message arrives as an attached audio file.Call blast is a new feature that lets customers send out a voice mail simultaneously to a group of people. Citron anticipates that will be useful when he&#39;s in charge of calling 15 kids who go to school with his kids to tell them there is a snow day.&quot;We expect to roll out a new capability every month or two,&quot; Citron said.Vonage also plans to offer another service that lets users access the voice recognition system from any phone to make a call through Vonage. The company is also testing software that would let customers make Vonage calls via software on their laptops.Many of these services are free to Vonage customers.Citron said that the future for Vonage will be brighter. Despite continued high churn, last quarter it had a gain of 77,000 customers, which he says isn&#39;t as good as it should be. The company has worked to cut costs, and improvements in customer service should help decrease customer losses, he said.In the meantime, speculation continues to circle that the payouts Vonage made to settle the lawsuits will cripple it. But Citron was confident that the company&#39;s troubles are behind it.
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Vonage and AT&T finalize a deal in their patent infringement case.
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Promises to side-step its way out, again VoIP provider Vonage has lost another patent battle, this time with Sprint Nextel, which owns six infringed patents and stands to gain almost $70m in a court-ordered payout.â¦
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Vonage, the U.S. pioneer of low-cost  phone service over Internet broadband connections, on Tuesday  said it was working with a phone maker to offer a "Wi-Fi"  handset for subscribers to use at home or around town.
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WASHINGTON - The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) plans to appeal a November decision by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibiting states from regulating VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services, such as those offered by Vonage Holdings.
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AT&amp;T filed a lawsuit against VoIP provider Vonage on Friday seeking damages for alleged patent infringement.The lawsuit comes just days after Vonage settled a patent-infringement lawsuit with telecom provider Sprint Nextel.In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, AT&amp;T alleged that Vonage wilfully infringed an AT&amp;T patent related to telephone systems that allow people to make VoIP calls using standard telephone devices.In the legal filing, AT&amp;T said it tried to reach an agreement with Vonage to license the patent, but failed, which forced the lawsuit.Vonage announced on Oct. 8 that it settled its suit with Sprint Nextel for $80 million. As part of that agreement, Vonage agreed to license VoIP patents from Sprint, including more than 100 patents covering technology for connecting calls from a traditional phone network to an IP network.Vonage is also in the process of resolving a patent infringement dispute with Verizon. Earlier this year, a court found&#160;Vonage infringed on Verizon patents&#160;and ordered an injunction that could have prevented Vonage from signing up new customers.&#160;Vonage won an injunction staying the order&#160;and is appealing the original infringement ruling. Vonage in August said it was close to rolling out workarounds for two of the three patents Verizon claimed.Vonage is one of the largest independent VoIP providers in the U.S. with nearly 2.5 million customers.
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The land of Internet calling may not be free of regulation for much longer.
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State Democrats seeking compensation in an Election Day 2002 phone-jamming scheme can argue that the GOP plot hindered their get-out-the-vote efforts, a judge has decided.