Comments on: Vonage--An IPO filing like it's 1999

Critics say profit-challenged Vonage is going to have a tough time convincing Wall Street it's a good investment.

[dbpayer]

Consumers will demand better quality

I run a small internet access and hosting business in the midwest. When Vonage came to town a year ago I relished the thought of using new technology to cut costs and give new features to our phone service.

I got Vonage service, (it took 3 months to transfer my business phone number to Vonage) and I have worked with it since then.

This week I finally decided to return to the copper connections of Qwest because the quality of Vonage was becoming unacceptable.

On many, many occasions, the call simply broke while I was talking to customers. One of us would need to call back to the other. It is a common experience that an odd echo/breaking of the sound occurs and you lose about 3 seconds of the conversation causing you to ask your customer to repeat (who knows if it is happening to them from my voice via Vonage).

I attempted on several occasions to write Vonage via their website support system. They must have been too busy growing as I never got a response from them. When their website (and all your controls over your voicemail/forwarding) goes down for hours at a time, there is no explanation of why it occured. When I call, I got non-native English speaking support staff.

I finally decided I could no longer afford Vonage, as much as I wanted to use the new technolgy. To be sure it was not simply the kind of connection I had, I also tested Skype in the same environment. I did not experience technical difficulties with Skype and the quality of voice connection was clearly superior even with a laptop's built in microphone and speakers.

So, if Vonage wants to grow, it better do things to hold on to customers. I wanted to give them a full chance to grow through their difficulties. I gave them a year. I can't afford to give them any more time.

DP

[felgercarbnaysay]

No problems here

I have two lines on Vonage. One for home office, one for the family. So far, so good. I wish I could say the same for the Comcast Cable service it runs over. I have no doubt that the "big boys" will make life miserable for Vonage and that our wonderful federal government will burden them with regulation and taxes that will make the advantages of VOIP less pronounced. The main reason I disconnected from Verizon (my local carrier) and went VOIP was the fact that I'm not being nickeled and dimed to death. All the things I've come to rely on like call waiting, voicemail, Caller ID and advanced forwarding features are part of the one low price I pay for Vonage. The technology is cool, but the savings are cooler. If Vonage does nothing more than drive down the cost of good full-features telephony, I'll be happy. Vonage is doing to the local carriers what MCI did to AT&T back in the 80s. That's a good thing.

[mortis9]

Vonage works for Time Warner, etc.

Everytime they advertise for Vonage, they aren't advertising why their VoiP solution is better than the big guys, like the cable companies, and accordingly all of their advertising dollars goes into getting customers for the competition. Good job!

Skype is Winning

I'm not buying Vonage stock. . .

[MS789]

skype?

ya, ok. whatever. i'll stick with my 1998 cell phone. it makes PHONE CALLS and doesnt take pictures or play music. as for a home phone, havent had one since 2000. dont need one. the cell works fine.