Sipphone sues Vonage and Fry's over new hardware
posted Sep 30th 2004 10:10AM
You might know him best as the founder of MP3.com or the guy behind Lindows (or Linspire or whatever they're calling it now), but Michael Robertson has another company up his sleeve called SIPphone. Basically a VoIP phone service, they've recently filed a lawsuit against electronics retailer Fry's and VoIP competitor Vonage alleging that the packaging of Linksys' new Linksys Phone Adapter and RT31P2 Broadband Router (pictured at right) is misleading. Since they're not suing Linksys at all you're probably wondering what the hell Vonage (not to mention Fry's) has to do with all this, but basically the Linksys gear is locked down so it'll only work with Vonage's VoIP service, and SIPphone thinks this is misleading since people might buy the equipment thinking they can use it with SIPphone or somebody else's VoIP service. To Sipphone, this isn't fair — not only do the customers not have a choice of their VoIP service, but they may not know that they will be charged a monthly fee for the service. Are they just whining? SIPphone does market its own competing hardware, but the real question is just how confusing the packaging and marketing of the Linksys gear really is. It's not like Vonage really has anything to gain by people being tricked into buying the Linksys gear and then not signing up for their broadband telephone service. This one is for the courts to decide…
Is this thing Linux based like the WRT54G?
In that case you can probably make it work with other VoIP companies after all.
A little hacking required...
A frivolous, whiny, complaint from M. Robertson. Companys such as VONAGE are only attempting to help their customers by ensuring configuration and hardware compatibility is implemented and functioning correctly the first time. This also has the positive impact of reducing company thus customer costs by reducing the amount of support time spent on helping -- respectfully speaking -- "Harry homeowner customer" who has mistakenly config'd an odd ball device to work with service providers such as FRY and VONAGE, among others. You do not need LINKSYS to work with VONAGE in any event, as MOTO VTs, among other devices, work just fine with VONAGE.
Cliff Singer - TENNECO Automotive-Global Corp. IT (Six Sigma BB)
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While I agree that many people have done some cool things by hacking Linksys routers, customers shouldn't have to hack to use the hardware they buy with the service of their choice. Locked hardware is only intended to limit choice. You can create an auto-configure unit without locking it.
Even then, it is up to Vonage if they want to lock hardware, just tell us it is locked on the box and that the hardware is USELESS without their monthly service fee.
It's called Linspire, suprising how someone that writes columns about technology isn't aware of this by now. They've sold the name Lindows to your friends up in Redmond in case you haven't heard this either.
This is stupid! I'll tell you why...IT SAYS VONAGE ON TOP OF THE BLUDDY BOX!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOw is this misleading?
LOL...I guess he has too much time on his hands!
Well Gents,
While you comments are rather amusing, being a profeesional in the networking world I found the packings somewhat misleading. In the back of my mind I realized that it was most likely proprietary hardware, but the big linksys name and right colors put me at ease, because "I just bought another linksys router". I was sure that I could use it as just another router, heck the start-up was for the linksys router!!! - Ripoff