Vonage: no workaround, we're pretty much screwed
By Paul Miller 
posted April 16th 2007 7:05PM
posted April 16th 2007 7:05PM
Things just went from "really bad" to "oh man that sucks" for Vonage. The VoIP provider is requesting a permanent stay on Judge Claude Hilton's decision in the Verizon patent suit, which decrees that Vonage can't sign up any new customers until it figures out a way to provide them service that doesn't infringe upon Verizon's patents. Vonage had already been granted a temporary stay, saying that they'd drum up a workaround, but this new request is much more pessimistic, saying that because Verizon's patents are so broad, such technology would take months to develop, "if even feasible." The unlucky company is making a bit of a pity play as well, saying that even if it "was somehow able to implement a design around, and was able to ultimately prevail on appeal, it would have no hope of regaining its lost customers, or its lost goodwill, and its loss of revenue would be permanent and..." Oddly, the statement cuts out there, because the rest of it was redacted as "confidential material." The whole Vonage statement is in fact riddled with such holes, making it hard to figure out exactly what's going on -- other than the fact that Vonage doesn't like its chances of building a workaround. No mention of that VoIP Inc. safety net either, but perhaps Vonage still thinks it has a shot at doing this the old fashioned way.[Via GigaOM]
Update: Tier 1 research analyst Daniel Berninger points out that it's actually possible that Verizon's patents may be illegitimate. Apparently the two patents in question, 6,104,711 (filed March 6, 1997) and 6,282,574 (filed February 24, 2000) may themselves use technology openly discussed and published by VocalTec back in 1996. In fact, it may also indirectly include technology input from the likes of IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Nortel, etc. made during the VoIP Forum in 1996, with the businesses' original intentions that this tech be used in future open standards. Can anything be proved here that would give Vonage a get out of jail free card? Well, we're certainly not lawyers (we'll defer to the legally-inclined in our audience), but already this patent he-said she-said is smacking a bit of RIM and NTP's fracas, and we all know how ugly that wound up being for the BlackBerry maker.
Dawg....Because it pays more than flipping burgers. No one is argueing about working for them.. They definately don't pay well compared to their competitors I can tell you that first hand. You admit you are a fire fighter and now i understand why you don't understand why Verizon and AT&T are not a good thing. By your logic let's let AT&T/Verizon run the show and shut down the little guy. YOu are saying this even if you will deny it. Your logic brings that about by default. There's no other way. I wonder how many people would be working with competition vs. no competition. There would be significantly less people employed if there is less competition. So let me ask. Is only working for a LEC important or is having people employed in good jobs a good thing as well? You can't have both and ask yourself what is better. Do you not like competition? I don't know what your stance is here.. You act as if the phone company doesn't make money no matter what. SUre they maintain their plant and when they resell they make money just less. But the consumer benifits. I pay 25 a month and my vonage experience has been great. I know how to set up my network and I have a good ISP so it's not an issue. YOur Tax arguement is lame. The reason we can't drive 80 is it's unsafe. The same reason why d/ling kiddie porn is illegal. It harms other has nothing to do with "owning it". BTW I do own my bandwidth as long as I do what is within the TOS. IF you let the LEC have their way they will make it against their TOS to use voip or block it. What a great world when you can sell something and block any competition. What's next... no youtube we want to sell that to you via our crappy service... IF they can sell it to you and shut down someone else they will. It's MONEY MONEY MONEY nothing to do with their employees/customers. When they get robots to do it they will. trust me. And the FIOS plant will take way less maintenance and techs so yes they are going to FIRE a lot of people. IF you are ok with that then keep on keepin on..
that sucks. i hope they find a work around. the prices and voice quality are excellent for me. i have never had one problem out of vonage.
So let me see if I've got this right "Dawg". It is somehow Vonage's fault that their service sucked on your internet connection? Did it ever occur to you that your internet provider could be at fault for this? Or how you hooked up the Vonage equipment on your home network? Do you know what QoS is? Don't pan Vonage because you don't understand the technology or because your ISP sucked.I've been with them for years and the technology works great (and saves you a lot of $$) IF you spend about 15 minutes learning a little bit about VoIP technology.The real issue here is continued predatory patent practices by companies both large and small. Patent law is becoming a bigger and bigger burdon on businesses. If you really cared as much about Verizon as you say you do then you would probably understand that.
I suppose if a company claimed that they patented the stovetop method of boiling water you'd be all right with that too as long as some guy in a factory in Michigan was getting paid to crank out those patented water boiling devices?
Verizon would out source and fire every technician and middle manager in the blink of an eye if they could find a way to do it, they certainly don't like paying for that union labor. They are NOT your friend.
And BTW, I work for a large Telecom equipment manufacturer and I have seen the continued layoffs and marginalization of jobs in this industry as American companies spend more time trying to protect "what's theirs" than trying to innovate.
@ Jason, actually when I used Skype, I did not experience the poor quality of service as I did with Vonage. Even my Xbox Live VoIP is better. 1mb upstream for a 56kb voice should have been good enough. What was Vonages churn rate before this patent trolling as you call it? Probably higher than other telcos.
So what's the solution Jason?
and I don't mean anything by you being a firefighter just that I work in the industry and I think I can speak to it better than you .. when there's a 4 alarm or fire in SD county then I'll ask you.
Skype!
@ Sanstrom
Then you should know first hand there are a lot of competitors the LECS face. There's VoIP, theres broadband over powerlines, there are the cable companies, there are wireless internet companies, Wi-Fi, Wi-max, there are 3G cellphones. That's why Verizon is doing the FiOS because of competition. I said I fully understand that Verizon will fire people... in about 5 or 10 years after everything is built out. I never said people will be retiring from there, but it beats flipping burgers and get the money while it there.
I don't see a problem if any ISP wants to charge for prioritizing data. It's simple in theory. Mail for instance. Do you pay for 1st or 3rd class? Traveling, what's the better experience for the consumer 1st class or coach?
You really do work for a gov entity don't you. What does the crappy mail system have to do with this? It's nothing the same. What you don't know is that the LECS will prioritize companies out of business. THey DON'T OWN THE INTERNET. THEY DIDN'T CREATE IT. IF they want to charge more to "enhance" but not block what I want to do then fine but your arguement trusts them. There is no trust to be had with the LECS as they don't have a good track record. I had a friend that told my I should pay higher taxes so he can keep his job. You know what I said? F OFF to his face. Since when is he entitled to leech off of my back? I'm on a tangent. I believe you are shilling man just admit it. It's so fricken obvious. SO it's ok for there to be competition.... but it's also ok to for Verizon to bully smaller competition with questionable patents. That will probably put Vonage out of biz which is good for .. VERIZON not competition and your rates will go up. Then when they meld with AT&T that will make for even more $$$$ for their shareholders who of course aren't their customers or employees (to any important degree). The fat cats who make money off of this sort of thing will profit while the consumer pays more for less (you will get less) and people lose their jobs. What a great idea you have. Don't tell me what I should know I do know. Like I said when there's a fire.. I'll ask you.
Speaking of ludicrous patents - Back in the 90s Compton patented the term "multimedia"... and it stuck for a VERY long time...
No idea what happened to them but now that's what I can call a crazy patent.
The amazing part is the rapid adoption and application of technologies.
In this case it is voip.
No sooner than you read of voip than you had vonage with a market leader Linkys and later d-link involved.
Within a year newer technologies such as skype and jajah have reduced the impact of vonage and offered working competitive options.
Such is the nature of change and learning growth
well at least I won't have to see anymore of those annoying vonage commercials.
I have Lingo and it is cheaper and they are not infringing on any patents: )
Vonage is awesome, Verizon sucks and should be destroyed. When there is such monopoly on things, the laws should prevent (see Euro and Microsoft).
It really sucks for the vonage users (such as myself) because of the stark contrast in how your phone service has improved for the better. If vonage slightly infringed on some bogus far reaching patent, but sold their game better than verizon...then I say verizon should man up and take it on the chin rather than play childish court games.
Hmm, With all of this money Verizon is getting, maybe our phone bill will go down a little. (PLEASE!?!)
I don't know about anyone else but today I tried to dial 1-800 numbers from my vonage account and got dead air. I was able to dial my cell but all 1-800 numbers I tried gave me dead air after the final #. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The truth comes out - The ideas Verizon patented were independently published on the internet before Verizon took out the patents. This is a violation of the patent process - I wonder if the original publishers can now sue Verizon for copyright infringement? Well, at least it looks like Vonage will now win the appeal.
Story: http://www.itworld.com/Net/3303/070418verizonpatent/
Hey Dawg,
Where do you live...Temecula? That explains it! There are bigger issues here that you're not grasping...
You do a disservice to SD county by saying where you're from.
Carlsbad.