|
Below, you'll find extensive information on leading
voip articles and products to help you on your way
to success.
Will The Downfall Of Vonage Hurt Residential Voip Customers?
By doug smith
Vonage, already struggling from a series of setbacks, has just taken another two huge body blows - one by the U.S. Court of Appeals on behalf of Verizon, and the other by Sprint Nextel. At first glance, it looks like the old-school phone companies are not only fighting back, but winning. But is that really the case, and if it is, what does that mean for other providers?
First, the news. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a previous decision to award an injunction against Vonage's use of technology based around two patents held by Verizon. A third patent was also involved, and in that case, the verdict is not yet final - it has been sent back to the original court for further clarification and a recalculation of awards and damages associated with the verdict. That last part, at least, is a little good news, since it suggests that the $58 million in damages plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales that was originally awarded may be reduced. This came one day after a New York court reached a similar decision in a suit brought by Sprint Nextel, in which it awarded the company damages of $69.5 million and 5 percent royalties on future Vonage sales. This award is being appealed, and it may yet be set aside.
The result was a drop in stock price for Vonage to just more than $1, as well as a suspension of trading. Less than 18 months ago, Vonage went public with an initial share price of $17. That's a huge drop and a huge blow to the company. In addition, if both lawsuits end up where they stand right now, Vonage is going to be paying 10 percent of everything it makes to two of its biggest rivals, not exactly a recipe for success.
What Next?
Despite a giant customer base, a well-known brand and, yes, even some loyal customers, it is hard to imagine Vonage recovering from these blows. Instead, it is likely that its customers will drift away over the next two years. The big question: Where will they go? Probably in the short term, the most likely answer is to their local cable provider. One of the reasons for Vonage's early success was simply that cable companies weren't in the game. Now that they are and are offering service in combination with Internet and TV service (usually in the popular "triple-play" package, in which voice, Internet and TV service cost $100 per month), it is hard to see customers looking much beyond that easy, one-stop shopping.
And the other question that has to be troubling the other (smaller) residential companies is whether or not these telco and cable giants are going to come after them next.
But there are two other groups that could see some success. One is the more edgy
players that offer basic free services while charging for extras. This group is led, of course, by Skype but include tens - even hundreds - of niche players. And Skype, despite some recent bad publicity, is clearly making inroads. It now has 20 million registered users in North America, up from 10 million a year ago. Since the company makes the concurrent numbers of users at any one time public, it is easy to see that it now has more than
Further musings on Ono
Recently, we did an unscientific (and really, I cannot stress that word enough) but real-world test of performance using the Ono plugin for BitTorrent client Vuze/Azureus. Our results were inconclusive. David Choffnes, the author of the Ono plugin, responded to the test in our comments section of that article: Regarding your results, it is difficult to run controlled experiments because even when you download the same torrent, you're doing it at different times with necessarily different
jkOnTheRun, A Mobile Communications Blog, In GigaOM Folds.
Giga Omni Media, the parent company of GigaOM, is the new owner of jkOnTheRun. jkOnTheRun blog was a joint effort by James Kendrick and Kevin Tofel that wrote about mobile everything, including mobile phones and anything ese that get you off your seat. jkOnTheRun will become the sixth blog in the GigaOM Network. You can find the information about the deal from James & Kevin on jkOnTheRun. Tags: jkOnTheRun, VoIP business, Giga Omni Media, GigaOMCopyright © 2005-2008 SnapVoip, Published by sn
Nemertes Press Release: Nemertes Presents Top Unified Communications Vendors with PilotHouse Awards
For more information, contact: Karen Wucher Nemertes Research Phone: 972.335.7028 Cell: 972.872.0828 Karen.Wucher@nemertes.com Nemertes Presents Top Unified Communications Vendors with PilotHouse Awards New York, NY ? Jul. 23, 2008 ? Four leading unified-communications vendors earned PilotHouse Awards from Nemertes Research, based on ratings from their customers. ?For now, the main UC battle is between Cisco and Microsoft, as measured by customer experiences and ratings,? says Robin Gare
Free Download: EmergencyWipe for BlackBerry - 24 Hours Only!
The new Free Download has arrived. This time we bring the famous BlackBerry security application called EmergencyWipe. It supports all current BlackBerry devices including the brand new BlackBerry Bold. No questions asked! BlackBerryInsight brings this free download to you with no requirements. Just click the download link below and download the application directly to your desktop. Unfortunately, we do not have an OTA download link available for this so you need to use your BlackBerry Deskt
Unified Communications Almost Free
When Avaya started pushing $99/user unified communications solutions, I knew that there would be a price war in the UC space. In my opinion price wars are bad. Nobody wins in a price war because in order to deliver low prices, margins are cut to the bone and inevitably service suffers. The implication here is not that any single vendor is providing inferior service at the moment mind you but price wars generally don't end well for anyone. Having said that, we have the opposite end of the spec
Jaunt
Other people ask "why telecommute?", but Glenn Reynolds asks, "why not?" DIGITAL NOMADS: High gas prices promote telecommuting. "One thing leads to another. High gas prices prompt employers (including the federal government) to allow employees to work from home once a week. Once that's accepted culturally, an elephant appears in the boardroom: If it's OK once a week, why isn't it OK five times a week? (This is what happened with 'casual Friday' -- its once-a-week acceptance lead to the curr
VoIP SaaS
Did I call this or what? AT&T has developed a software trick that will let modern mobile handsets, including Apple Inc?s iPhone, recognize voice commands without the need for specialized voice recognition software. The research project is based on a new version of AT&T?s WATSON speech recognition engine, dubbed Speech Mashups, that puts the entire feature on the web as a service that can be called upon from anywhere a high-speed Internet connection is possible. As long as the software used t
McAfee: SMBs underestimate cybercrime risks
The latest survey from security vendor McAfee has found that small to medium-size businesses wrongly conclude their revenue is too low to draw the attention of cybercriminals. SMBs are in fact rich hunting ground for hackers, McAfee said. Although there may be less money or data to steal, the attacks are also less likely to gain the attention of law enforcement organizations such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. [ Learn how to secure your systems with Roger Grimes' Security Adviser
Get Green with Leader Phone(R) Web 2.0 Audio Conferencing
Higher quality and more features at less cost... and it's green COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 23 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) -- Leader Technologies(R) announced today its Get Green initiative, which will implement special programs with green non-profits to reduce communication costs and reduce the carbon footprint of participating companies simultaneously. Chairman Mike McKibben points to Leader Phone(R) audio conferencing as an obvious way for companies to "get greener." "Our patented Web 2.0 innovati
Thank Heavens for the recession
I remember many years ago my boss saying recruitment is recession proof, quite a bold statement but in some ways true. His point was recruitment can move from one depressed sector to a new growing one. If there is one thing we all know is some companies will prosper during a recession, you just need to look at the likes of Aldi one of a few mentioned on the BBC article ?Profits of Gloom?. Saying that some recruitment companies will find it more difficult these days, because we have become mo
Other Hardware :: RE: Land line to ATA
Author: boatman9 Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:09 am (GMT -7) Topic Replies: 6 NAT is used on most home style LANs. Of course the PAP2 must be on a LAN IP address if you are sharing a single public IP address with other devices such as a computer. NAT is sometimes involved in VoIP issues. As the SPA3102 is also a router it can be placed directly on the public IP address, then NAT is not needed for your SIP phone, only for your other devices. I have no experience with FXO port devices, so I
Telephone Adapters & VoIP phones :: RE: I can make free calls but not pay calls on my Siprura
Author: mobilediesel Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:21 pm (GMT -7) Topic Replies: 23 Still no response of any kind from Gizmo5. I'm about to do a charge-back for the money that's in my account but I can't use it. I'm also using Callcentric and it works fine for outgoing calls on the same hardware. That means it is definitely a problem with Gizmo5's service and not my hardware.
General Discussion :: RE: Zoom 5800 and Gimzo Project
Author: chernyakm Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:11 pm (GMT -7) Topic Replies: 3 ljohnson15 wrote: Here is my Zoom config: Under VoIP ACCOUNTS: SIP Enable: Enable Service Provider Name: Gizmo (or anything you want) Outbound Caller ID Name: 1747xxxxxxx Phone Number (SIP User ID): 1747xxxxxxx Auth User Name: 1747xxxxxxx Auth Password: your account password SIP Server: proxy01.sipphone.com Auth Domain: proxy01.sipphone.com Outbound Proxy: proxy01.sipphone.com Register Dom
Make Free Custom iPhone Ringtone using iRinger
As many of you would know, Apple does not allow users to put custom Ringtones on their iPhone unless the ringtones have been purchased through iTunes. So in the end, iPhone customers are left with only two choices: Use the default ringtones or pay for new ones. Use the iRinger software, reviewed by Moin, that lets you make free custom iPhone Ringtones. I would prefer choice#2 as there is nothing more pleasing than giving your iPhone its own personalized ringtone all for free. iRinger cre
Fedora Talk launches
The Fedora Project has announced the launch of Fedora Talk, an Asterisk-based telephony system. "Fedora contributors can set up ad hoc conferences, further deepening social connections and creating a more efficient method for communication when working on certain projects. In the future, we hope to add web conference capabilites for anyone with VoIP access. There are other possibilities to explore with Fedora Talk as well. What if, in the future, a Fedora volunteer could claim an hour of time to
Essential apps for running an eBay business
Recently I?ve switched to a new laptop and had to take stock of the programs and hardware I use to run my eBay business. Hunting for install disks, drivers and trying to remember passwords is always a challenge and I thought it would be interesting to find out what other sellers consider essential software / hardware. Apart from the normal operating system (WinXP - I refuse to go to Vista), Office (MS again), AV (AVG from Grisoft), Turbolister and printer drivers (I use the HP Universal driver
Orange Internet Max ? The Port 25 Trap
Here?s a blog entry about something that leaves me quite speechless: A couple of months ago, Orange France started to offer mobile Internet access via their prepaid Mobicarte SIMs. For 9 euros a month, Orange says they grant full access to the Internet (no, not the Web, the Internet!) from mobile phones with their Internet Max offer. The fine print says may limit the speed after 500 MB a month. Further they say that eMail via SMTP, IMAP and POP3 is limited to 10 MB per month. And finally they s
Plumble launches free calling services to USA and Canada
Ad-Based VOIP Solutions are still being tested out by VOIP Providers as viable option to provider free international calls. Pudding Media tried to do the same and actually raised some capital recently. However, there are more VOIP solution Providers trying to grab the market share. Plumble is one of those VOIP Solution providers who believe that free international calls can be provided in lieu of advertisements. I don't know how successful Pudding Media is with their audio advertisements Free
VoIP Infomercial
A company I started years back was building a VoIP box for consumers. I remember a VC telling me that rather than raising VC, we'd be better off putting the box on TV infomercials. Tony Banks did well with Tae bo after all. Well...the Magic Jack VoIP box people are doing just that. This is painful to watch (but aren't all infomercials?). It features all these former telecom execs, former news anchors...and all for a former pain point. There are plenty of options for saving money on your p
Bookmarks for Luglio 23rd from 07:22 to 07:22
These are my links for Luglio 23rd from 07:22 to 07:22: SANS Institute - SANS Information Security Reading Room - Security White Papers - Tags: book, books, documentation, ebooks, infosec, reference, resource, sans, Security Related posts Bookmarks for Luglio 7th from 09:58 to 09:58 (0) Bookmarks for Giugno 24th from 11:54 to 11:54 (0) Windows Vista, patch a vista? (4) VoIP e NAT - Il protocollo STUN, parte seconda (4) Ubuntu Dapper + XGL + Compiz + ATI X1600 (103)
9 million callers actively using Skype at any moment. And Skype, like other client-based services (Gizmo Project and several cell-phone enablers like Truphone spring to mind), is moving relatively fast in terms of adding functionality and features.
Wifi VoIP
The other group is far less obvious - it's the mobile-phone providers. As more and more people abandon landlines altogether, mobile-phone companies are also stepping in to IP-based services to expand their offerings and reduce their costs. The previously mentioned Truphone is an example, having just demonstrated true calling on the Apple iPhone.
All of these players are just itching to step in and grab chunks of the lucrative residential phone pie. In fact, they already have much of it. So what's left for VoIP?
The simple answer is business. Business is a whole other kettle of fish. That market is changing rapidly, and PBX (Private Brach eXchange) services in particular are letting small companies look like big companies while still operating at small-company prices.
The more complex answer is in interconnecting everything. isn't going away; in fact, is rapidly being put inside every form of voice calling - from traditional telco to mobile phone to business PBX to voice services - if it isn't already there. It isn't that's in danger from a Vonage collapse - it's the idea that just changing from traditional telephone circuits to is all that it takes to make a new phone company. Article Source: http://articles-galore.com Doug S is the webmaster of SIP Phones and Directory
Products and Services mentioned in this article are available Here  
|
