Vonage hopes new services will improve prospects
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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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Irvine-based Linksys (www.linksys.com) announced that it is in a deal with Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Vonage (www.vonage.com) to provide equipment for home and small businesses.
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AOL LLC has said it would make available its AIM Phoneline VoIP service, which is part of its instant messaging client, to developers in a bid to spur new hardware and functionality for the service.
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The largest Voice-over-IP business deployment revealed to date presents new opportunities for both the bank that&#39;s using it and the services provider that&#39;s implementing it.
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With its Internet-based phone service well established, AT&T (NYSE: T) now is  focusing on establishing common ground among the broad array of technology providers that help the operator deliver VoIP to businesses and consumers.
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The voice-over-IP market is growing, and by next year, 50% of all lines installed in the U.S. are expected to rely on VoIP technology -- despite continuing concerns that installations can be costly.
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T-Mobile is testing a service that combines VoIP and cellular access in hopes of catching up with its competitors.
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Vonage and Linksys are teaming up to make voice over Internet Protocol service available through Wi-Fi equipment made by Linksys. Vonage will announce the Linksys partnership Tuesday.
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Even though its fundamentals are improving, including a narrowing loss, VoIP provider Vonage is beginning to feel the sting of competition, as subscriber growth is beginning to stall.
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Verizon will use Linksys phone adapters for its VoIP service, as the market for placing calls over the Net picks up momentum.
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In the long term, the device will reshape mobile telephony.  But in the shorter term, don't expect upheaval.
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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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The company hopes the server software will help it move into unified messaging, where voice mail, e-mail and fax come together.
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The largest voice-over-IP business deployment revealed to date presents new opportunities, for both the bank that&#39;s using it and the services provider that&#39;s implementing it.
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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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Upstart Internet telephone company Vonage made its mark on telecom in 2004 and isn't backing down in 2005. The company this week said it will make chatting on the go even easier for consumers with WiFi technology, a move that could spook traditional mobile phone carriers in the same way as Internet phones are doing to the local Baby Bells.
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Company invites developers to tweak hardware and software for Internet phone service launched earlier in year.