sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information VONAGE & other VOIP Dialtones....

I was wondering what you all feel is the future for the BroadBand Based Dialtones....

Will they survive on their own or be gobbled up like everybody else....

Do you think Vonage will stand alone???

I think we are going to see things we never expected from things like Vonage. When the cable guy came to put our high speed internet in, he told me they were going to start offering IP centrex. They will provide as many CISCO phones as you want and you just pay the monthly bill. No local phone company needed. They are already doing residential vonage like service. I don't think companies like Vonage will be bought out by anyone like SBC because of regulatory issues.
Companies you have never heard of before, like Point one https://www.pointone.com are laying the groundwork for something totaly different. Only problem I have is I have no idea how next generation IP trunks are going to interface to the switches we sell. I've posted a couple of items on that point on the board and got little feedback. You might also want to check out a company called CoVad https://www.covad.com/voip/whycovad.shtml.

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I disagree. Companies like Vonage are going to be allowed to flourish and as soon as they are ripe they are going to get the same treament and the phone company gets and you will start paying. I haven't seen yet were the US gov't hasn't tried to make more money off us...why would this be any different?

Rest assured, when the gov. figures out how to tax it, they will. That's one of the few thing they do well.

The Goverment will tax it when they find out how to measure it. For some time I was paying three dollars a month to have my abillity to make long distance calls blocked. After the break up of Ma Bell I payed two dollars a month for the privilege of making the long distance calls I was paying three dollars not to be able to make.

Oh, they can already measure it..the packets are marked and reast assured that the FCC will reign in vonage and others as soon as there is money to be had.

my topic was not about taxing it, we all know that will happen. My question is if Vonage and other broadband telco companies can stand on their own, and fightt off a merger..

Yes, but the two go hand-in-hand. The more the service is taxed, the less business they will have, meaning less profit, meaning more willing to be taken over by larger companies.

Right now the Vonage-type companies are very much outstanding in the field because they are so much more affordable than the LECs. Once the playing field is leveled some through taxation and REGULATION (especially), they will look closer to being equals. The larger compaies will be able to better spread out their overhead through consolidation of like-functions, in addition to outsourcing of what they can. The smaller Vonage-type companies won't have the resources to do that as much. I see them building a customer base, profiteering where they can, while they can, then selling off to the highest bidder. Why would this sector of telecom be any different than what we have all witnessed to be the status quo?

There is my 2.5 cents.

I am a Vonage customer, and I have no complaints. I have also recommended to some select customers to use. 1 of our customers have offices in several countries. We have ordered vonage service locally. We send the ATA over with instructions on how to connect it to their phone sys. They now can make international calls, via a 10 digit local call. I can't imagine the Gov letting this contiue.

Chris