Comments on: Vonage to pay $58 million in Verizon patent case

Vonage takes another blow when a Virginia jury found the IP telephony provider infringed on three Verizon patents.

[monumentsinstone]

Corporate Moneygrubbers

In my area Verizon is without much competition. As a Verizon wireless customer, I have been disgusted with their nickle and diming for services. Patents should be protected but this seems a little like Microsofts attemps to squash out competition in the browser market. Can someone say monopoly?
jq,
http://www.monumentsinstone.com

[asdf]

Software patents

Well this is what happens when you permit software patents. Europe does NOT permit software patents, for exactly this reason. It's bad for the consumer and competition and the economy.

How many of Vonage subscribers are aware that their lives are about to be made more expensive and something they like is about to be removed from the world because of software patents?

If you know one, tell one.

[cjackson642003]

the bull the big companys are trying

it just goes to show you that the big company's are going after the small ones. the small company's are offering service for a great price, and they do not like it. and if we the working class just stick with the small companys in there time of need we all will get great service for a great price.

[asdf]

Software patents strike again

Yet again the stupidity of software patents takes value from the market place and trashes it . Good so Verizon is doing everything it can to get Net Neutrality into the gas chamber. Software patents only reinforce their useless, sorry position.

When are Americans going to wake up and realize that corporate America is a monster out of a science fiction. This is not about competition; rest assured that any sophomore would have reconceived of these patents if left alone for two weeks to solve the same problem.


This WILL ruin your company too. You have to take action and that action has to be to tell your Congressman that software patents are bad for the market, bad for the consumer and bad for this country.

[mwhitman]

Sign up for Vonage

I have enjoyed Vonage service since 2003. I think more people
should sign up for Vonage and stop wasting money on the bloated
telcos who continue to charge excessive rates for their services.
Vonage will cost you about $25/month for unlimited calling and
ALL the call features. My neighbors were paying over $60/month
for less service from the local telco and they hardly use their home
phone. After seeing my bills, they switched.

[nicmart]

Verizon should buy Vonage

And then kill off Verizon's hideous VOIP service, VoiceWing. If
Verizon holds key patents, it sure doesn't know how to use them to
create a decent VOIP product.

[Gerry S]

You gotta be kidding

We don't need any already powerful company like Verizon grabbing up another company to give it even more market share...(I define grabbing up as putting them out of business in this case) Legal death to a good company that has made a strong committment to compete. I applaud them and hope they will survive.

[cashaww]

Verizon

If you people only knew how truly ass backwards Verizon is. I have
friends who work for the company, and some of the stories they
tell are wild when it pertains to their use/lack of use of technology.
I have been with Vonage since 2001/02 and I truly like their
service. I have turned a couple of my neighbours on to Vonage,
and they could not be happier. I hope they can somehow prevail.

[Dachi]

Solution: Peer

Currently calls placed from Vonage VoIP to anyone not also on Vonage end up on the switched phone network.

This is the same policy in place by most other VoIP companies as well because early on the number of VoIP customers out there were not significant enough to worry about the small cost savings of bypassing the telephony network.

Unfortunately, this method means that phone companies still enjoy some level of control.

I think the long term solution will be to peer with other VoIP carriers and just avoid the circuit switched networks where possible.

Currently when a call is placed by a Vonage subscriber the soft switch checks something like a telephony routing table for a local route, if a local route does not exist (ie. They don?t own the phone number), the call is trunked back to a gateway that communicates with the Telephony/SS7 network.

If they peer with another carrier like Packet8 for instance, all of Packet8's local routes will be handed off to a database that that the soft switches will also check before passing the call off to the gateway for the telephony network.

This has been standard practice on the internet for a while with BGP, but not so common with VoIP.

I think ironing out the technical challenges here will be one of the best ways for the VoIP companies to strike back.

[Wander9s]

Verizon

As a time when Skype, Paltalk and other companies implement VOIP which allow people to talk PC to PC and PC to local phone before Verizon implement into Verizon's network. How can Verizon win this case against Vonage? Are these juries have knowledge and timeline of VOIP implement into world wide? I think just sue back to Verizon and check when did they invent how this.

[Below Meigh]

Woohoo hoo hoo hooo

If you don't control the pipes (phone lines), then how do you think you'll benefit? Verizon corp likely sat back (like they've done since Bell Telephone days) and watched to see what came out of Vonage's spending. Then wait. It is what Verizon is could at: wasting time and other's money.

[sagiraju]

Impact on existing subscriber

What happens to existing subscriber. In case Vonage is forced to stop its service, it better pay damage charges to subscribers as well ? I think it is high time for the Industry to realize the biggest impact is to Consumers. Consumers should learn how to drive the market. Hope i see this happening.

[coachgeorge]

A funny thing happened

Thursday morning, all of a sudden I could not receive calls from local Verizon customers on my Vonage phone!
This problem lasted prox 27 hrs.
A coincidence? Hmmmmmmmm.

[Gerry S]

Gestopo tactics and predatory conduct

In my opinion, Verizon has taken on the old GTE predatory approach to eliminate any and all competition anyway they can. (GTE - Gestopo Telephone Exchange?). They could care less about anyone's customers, even their own...all they want it power, market share and to eliminate competition while increasing recurring revenue. Verizon is not a nice corporate citizen although they will put up a pretty good front...but behind the curtain, wizzards are working full time to sustain and conquer by any and all means. If Vonage should lose customers because of the inconsiderate predatory conduct of Verizon, I sure hope those with loss of service will send a strong message to the gestopo boys at Verizon and not do business with them under any circumstances. Corporate power is definitely out of control today and government regulators are certainly less than reasonably responsible. They do things to encourage competition, but never level the playing field for new or smaller companies that can't compete with the giants like Verzon and their Gestopo tactics and predatory conduct.

[kaptandrews]

Suppose it was the other way around...

You'd all be standing up cheering to high heaven that big, bad "monopoly" was getting it where the sun don't shine. You can not have it both ways. The patent process must work for everyone?including big corps like Verizon. That would be like me changing the logo of Windows XP and calling it Doors PX. As much as I am not a fan of Billy?he's done pretty well for himself!

All in all Verizon is right! Should they be able to shut down 2.2 million customers...no. They should not have let it get this far! Take the $58 mil, find an agreement with Vontage and scratch the royalties. It's good PR!

[tagno25]

Another void patent

Ya but the patent was filed after other voip services used the tech

[Brockleybadger]

US Patent Office

The purpose of a patent is to reward inventors for their work and encourage them to undertake research to the good of the community. Part of the process of granting patent is an assessment as to whether the idea is a genuine invention and not subject to prior art.
Did the US Patent office ask those questions of Verizon prior to granting the patent? Did Verizon invest $58 Million in the invention of the patented ideas? Were Verizon intending to develop the patents or just use them as a suppression tool to protect their old business lines?
There sure have been some dumb patents issued in the past which do not benefit the greater public? The whole US Patent system needs a thorough shake up or you will find that India/China will make the running in new inventions whilst the current lawyers and Company Execs enjoy their fat pensions that were generated by legal niceties.

[asdf]

This is software patents at work folks

Well this is what happens when you permit software patents. Europe does NOT permit software patents, for exactly this reason. It's bad for the consumer and competition and the economy.

How many of Vonage subscribers are aware that their lives are about to be made more expensive and something they like is about to be removed from the world because of software patents?

If you know one, tell one.