What is Digg?32 Comments
- kraemer007, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Yes please. This could give Vonage the kind of financial backing it needs to hit the big time.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I received an email from Vonage today trying to offer me a reduced rate if I paid for a full year in advance.
/dying breath - Mootabolife, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yes, maybe now the commercials won't suck.
- okaroleo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Buy him out boys!" - Bill Gates and his lackeys trash Home Simpson's Internet King office.
- Mohonri, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Unfortunately, Sprint is also our local telephone company. We switched to Vonage *specifically* to get away from Sprint (well, they call themselves Embarq now for local service). We had overbilling problems with Sprint from the time we stared our service for at least four months. What I like about Vonage is that it's cheap ($30 with all the taxes, which is what we were paying just for barebones local service), simple and comes with all the bells and whistles we want and plenty more that we don't need right now. If we wanted to get all those same features with the traditional Sprint, they would nickel and dime us to death. I don't think it takes much imagination to figure out what will happen to Vonage's level of service and pricing if Sprint takes over.
- slimbooty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What's interesting is that Time Warner VOIP rides on top of Sprints network (or MCI) based on your location. If Sprint buys vonage then the question is will they compete or join w/ Time Warner in VOIP. If Time Warner is using the same technology as Vonage then they will get sued as well?
- happystinky, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5What? Vonage would hit the 'big time' anyway. Jerk-offs Sprint and Verizon just want to bully an up-and-coming company and soon-to-be major competitor, out of the running by ganging up on them and kicking their ass before they become big enough to really stand up for themselves. Fortunately, if the injunction doesn't hold up, it will take years for this case to fully manifest while they continue to grow into their skin. Sprint just knows that since Vonage' stocks dropped several percent, if they decide to sell now, Sprint makes all that money back in profit if and when the injunction DOES go through. And, even if it doesn't, Sprint knows they can implement non-infringing technologies to avoid further infringement on Verizon's technology.
- scb0825, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If Sprint buys Vonage, I will cancel my service. I have had Sprint services, and worked for Sprint as a Network Engineer; and I can tell you that they are an evil company.
- winkydo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2skype ftw.
- glomgold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sprint should work on making the Nextel merger successful before it fouls up another company.
- snotrokit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If ya can't beat em, buy em.
A sad day when a company like Vonage goes under to patent trolls and gets sucked up by part of the problem. - spazoidspam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If this would mean I can make calls from my sprint cell to my parents vonage line and have them included in my in-network minutes then I'm all for it.
- Copperhe4d, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2noname94, could you stop being on the frontpage all the time?
- tokyopimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well I don't know what to think but I love Vonage. I know I hear complaints about Vonage, but I have none. The calls sound perfect, hell I have had torrents downloading and the calls were still fine. I guess it all depends on you ISP and the bandwidth you get, but I have 7mb down and 1.5mb up and it works perfect.
- mesoed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Rumors among my friends who work for Sprint here in Kansas City are that Sprint/Nextel is the one that may be acquired.
- JesterOZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'd also cancel Vonage if it was part of Sprint.
- Y0tsuya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Skype is still mostly tied to your PC. Most people like the transparent operation provided by Vonage. You plug the telephone adapter into your ethernet jack, the other end to your phone, and you're done. No installing SW and messing around on the PC. If you already have various corded/cordless phone scattered throughout the house (established infrastructure), this is the way to go. If you're a poor college student who needs just 1 phone in an studio apartment, then I guess Skype would work for you.
- Y0tsuya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great, they'll run it into the ground like they're doing with Nextel.
- kkeith02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@mesoed
Employees of Sprint have been saying for YEARS that Verizon was going to buy them out (I should know, I was a Sprint employee).
Sprint owns a portion of Earthlink already, as well as having ties with Embarq as well as a deal with several cable companies. If sprint were to gain control of Vonage, they would now have a VOIP service of their own. This means bundling: internet, cell phone, home phone and cable (with the cable operators help). Not to mention, Sprint just spun off Embarq, what better way to get back into the home phone game then buy a VOIP? At the very least it is one less competator for Embarq or, if Sprint doesn't want to partner with Embarq on this, a competitor in the home phone business. My guess is, they want to use it for bundling.
I think Sprint is waiting to see what happens with the Verizon suit, if it plays out ok, they'll buy Vonage, if not they'll probably pass unless they can come to an agreement with Verizon (Joint venture?). Same thing with Verizon, Verizon won't buy Vonage because Sprint will just start their lawsuit, Verizon would be in the same position as Sprint would be if they bought Vonage now. - feverjunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Packet8 seems to be pretty good.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Unfortunately, Sprint is also our local telephone company. We switched to Vonage *specifically* to get away from Sprint (well, they call themselves Embarq now for local service). We had overbilling problems with Sprint from the time we stared our service for at least four months. What I like about Vonage is that it's cheap ($30 with all the taxes, which is what we were paying just for barebones local service), simple and comes with all the bells and whistles we want and plenty more that we don't need right now. If we wanted to get all those same features with the traditional Sprint, they would nickel and dime us to death. I don't think it takes much imagination to figure out what will happen to Vonage's level of service and pricing if Sprint takes over."
They arnt Sprint anymore, they are 2 totally seperate companies. Sprint split the profitable parts (wireless and long distance) off from its local division a little over a year ago. The long distance and wireless kept the Sprint name, and the local telco is now called Embarq. So they really are two different companies now.
They still both suck ass though, but embarq sucks more than sprint does. - cyrix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This isn't really a great thing tbh. I wouldn't be suprised if they upped the prices heavily after purchasing them.
- MonkeyMCSE, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone recommend another service of this type? I joined Vonage because Sprint, err embarq(different name, same terrible service) really began to irritate me. I would get long distance charges, yet, had no long distance on my phone. I would get bills for bills already paid because their system must have really had me screwed up. I finally got tired of faxing them confirmation of payment via credit card and dropped them. If this actually is more than a rumor and they try to purchase Vonage, I will drop vonage as quickly as I started it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That 1.5mb up is why your service is so perfect. I'm not sure what the minimum *really* is to avoid problems w/ call clarity (in particular how you sound to others), but I haven't had any problems w/ 768k up myself. A co-worker w/ DSL who has 384k up had constant problems and ultimately ended up firing Vonage. Granted, that's his advertised speed. I'm unsure of what he was really getting. I was always under the assumption that VoIP needed 100k or so of upload bandwith.
- thirteenva, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They send those out toward the end of your yearly contract. Does your yearly contract expire soon?
I got one around the time our 1 year contract expired as well. Though I also got one yesterday.
I really hope this spring buy-out happens. I'm very happy with my vonage service. - motang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I though something like this would happen a few days ago when I heard about what was happening to Vonage. This could be a good thing for Vonage.
- jellyfishnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hmm... Maybe this is the first step to offering voip over EVDO. More realistically I doubt they would be the first movers into something like that, but just making sure they are ready in case they have to compete.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nope. I signed up in August.
- trenddigger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1HappyStinky has it right, but I still think the buy out could make Vonage even bigger and more mainstream. BTW, what about Skype? Why is it still kind of the stuff of web geeks? It's so great....
- spindrift, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Sprint canceled my cellphone because I didn't pay the bill, so I switched to a landline and got Vonage... if Sprint buys Vonage, does that mean they'll automatically disconnect my Vonage service too? ;D
So far the quality has been great. Just to be safe, I used my dd-wrt enabled router's QoS to give the Vonage port supreme priority. - meshman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Dammit! This was all going to turn out perfectly. I could watch TV with the confidence of knowing I wouldn't have to leap on the mute button to stop the G-D Woo-Hoos. Please, please God, make it stop!!!
- eatmorgnome, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3Yes please. This could give Vonage the kind of financial backing it needs to charge more and add additional taxes.
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