atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News Vonage hit with injunction

Story

here

? Does this mean that pretty much every deployer and user of VOIP is gonna owe Verizon $$$$$$$$$$$?
John C.

Thanks for posting, RBF. This could become very interesting.

As they say in NASCAR...things are gonna get real racey.

Really sucks but is anyone really surprised? Where are all the CLECs? Look what our (US) government does to squelch competition.

I think VoIP phone service is like the "wild west". It's not about competition but who can get away with the most. This is going to help level the playing field. Companies who have been offering the cheapest services will either have to bring their prices in line or be forced out of business. When prices have to increase the crappy service they offer won't look like such a bargain and that's what Vonage and the others are worried about.

Next comes slapping them with the same taxes and surcharges the LECs and CLECs have to pay.

-Hal

It wouldn't break my heart for either Verizon or Vonage to go out of business. I don't care for either of them. Since Verizon owns the federal government, I don't see that happening, but I do see them forcing Vonage out of business. They are good at that.

Vonage must have known that they were infringing on Patent rights of Verizon in first place. They took a shot anyway and now will pay the price.Their legal advice about same seems to have been 180 degrees off.-------------John

The question, to me, is exactly what the "VoIP Patents owned by Verizon" entail.

Is this claiming that Verizon owns patent to all VoIP technology? If so, this will stand the industry on its ear, or else it will quickly be overturned as a bad patent, and unenforceable (like the company that patented embedded hyperlinks in documents -- too broad of a patent, once the patent folks understood what was actually being patented).

Or is Verizon claiming patents on some small detail of the programming, which can easily be corrected by writing new code or by licensing competing technology?

Did I really see that the Vonage CEO stepped down (or was he thrown out?) and the stock had dropped from $17 to $3 but rebounded with this news?????

Telephoneguy, The patent involves the technology used to interface VOIP calls with the PSTN. I'm sure that Vonage is searching for a workaround. My guess is that the CEO stepping down is the begining of a huge company shake up that will probably include consolidation (and we all know what comes with that.)

Are the other VOIP providers already paying Verizon to use the same technology, and Vonage is simply feeling like "it was fun while it lasted?" :shrug:

It probably isn't an issue for any of the facilities based providers as their switch might do it?

I was wondering the same thing. What exactly are the pattons. I would like to know.

From what I have read in USA TODAY, the patents are, indeed, for the technology to interface IP with a PSTN.

It has been revealed that Vonage, while keeping up a good front in public, does not yet have any sort of doable work around.

This could result in Vonage merging with another company or going "toes-up".

This could result in Vonage merging with another company or going "toes-up".

I vote for toes-up, then I will not have to listen to that stupid music anymore.