If you use Vonage for your telephone service or you follow the tech community, you may be aware of the court battle they are having with Verizon. In short, the courts have ruled that Vonage has been using Verizon’s patented technology and not paying for it. The courts have ruled in favor of Verizon and ordered Vonage to pay $58 million. This article from the Chicago Tribune sums up the case so far and a court stay allowing Vonage to remain in business.

As a Vonage customer, I am undecided on what to do next. I am a content customer of the Internet telephony company, as I have never been really pleased with their service. To begin with, it took over 4 months for Vonage to transfer my phone number from SBC, then the name of the local phone provider now called AT&T. There were many outages early on as well, where I would lose phone service for hours or even days. Occasionally, voice mail and three-way calling do not work. However when it does work, I get a clear signal and email notification I received a voice mail message.

Last week the courts wanted Vonage to stop signing up new customers, and as I write this they have a stay of that order. That would choke incoming funds to the company, or as some may say good money after bad. Unclear is what the 2 million plus current customers have for options. Can I easily move my phone number away from Vonage? If so, what other telephony options do I have? Sorry AT&T – there was a reason why I wanted to leave you in the first place, and it’s still there!

Right now I am taking a wait and see approach. I doubt that any court would shut down the service before its customers were able to go elsewhere. Well, I hope that would be the case. Do you have Vonage, and what are you thinking?

Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink