No future for Vonage
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What is Vonage doing with a NYSE listing? It’s been trading at under a buck a share since last December — and it received a delisting notice as long ago as October 2008. Somehow, it managed to persuade the NYSE not to delist it in April, but it’s very unclear how. The stock has been languishing at about 40 cents since February, it’s lucky to get one analyst asking questions on its conference calls, and — this is my favorite datapoint — according to its latest results, its book value is negative to the tune of more than $108 million: the company has $334 million in assets, and $442 million in liabilities. Net income of $1 million in the most recent quarter (or $0.01 per share) isn’t going to make much of a dent in that.
I signed up for Vonage service in April 2003, so I’m a customer of long standing. There have been rocky periods along the way, especially as regards voice quality, but the thing which strikes me most is the fact that back then, when I signed up, the standard residential calling plan was $25.99 a month. Over the intervening six years, Vonage has faced huge competition, not only from triple-play packages and from Skype and Google Voice and the like, but also from people simply giving up land lines altogether for their cellphones. That has helped to push prices down, even as significant technological advances have helped to pull prices down. Today, the price of the standard calling plan has plunged all the way to… $24.99 a month.
I have too many phone numbers: my home phone (Vonage), my work phone, my iPhone, and my BlackBerry. And that’s not including my Skype and iChat accounts. I have more access to more telecommunications capability than I really know what to do with, especially since increasingly I communicate not by voice but rather by Twitter (when it’s up) and IM. Vonage isn’t really saving me money any more: it’s just an extra cost every month which I have increasing difficulty justifying.
I like having a home phone, I don’t particularly want to give up my home phone number, and through sheer inertia I’m likely to keep my Vonage account for the time being. But it’s hard to see much of a future for Vonage itself. The stock market has long since worked this out. Why hasn’t the NYSE?
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I too have been a Vonage user off and on since about 2003. I recently canceled the service in favor of Google Voice and SIP through Gizmo5 using a non-Vonage-locked Linksys PAP2. Now my VOIP calls are free and they work just like Vonage. Quality has been even better than Vonage so far.
The experience of canceling Vonage ruined any and all good will they’d gained with me. They offered to lower my bill to 14.95 per month for unlimited (forever) and also charged me $40.00 to disconnect the service even though I own the equipment and refused to unlock the PAP2 their service was connected to.
I agree, I doubt they have much of a future.
I’ve wondered a lot about Vonage and the voice portions of the “triple play” options offered by the likes of AT&T and Comcast: For a while now we have been using a “bring your own box, pay as you go” plan with a small VoIP provider. Our monthly cost is typically around $8 per line for all of our calls in and out (we get charged for inbound calls too). So for three lines (business, business fax and home) we are typically less than $25/mo.
Other than taking a little technical savvy on initial setup this is not very hard to do. So how can all of the major phone services out there routinely charge much more than this? Marketing? Inertia?
I canceled my Vonage service last summer but also had trouble doing so. They kept claiming that the system was down and asking me to call back after a few hours. After being told the same thing twice, I then called and said that I wanted to change my plan. And then the system worked fine for the agent who tried to upsell me :-) I then cancelled once they had my account available in the system for the agent.
I also have multiple Vonage accounts, and until a week ago, expected them to eventually succeed, if only because they have done the best job of delivering VoIP. That was until last week.
Then I got my Google Voice account. Vonage’s days are numbered. GV has its problems, but I don’t doubt they will solve them. If I had to use one word to describe GV, it would be great.
But Vonage shouldn’t feel too bad. ATT’s days are numbered, too, I just wish their number was as small as Vonage’s.
I was able to successfully port (transfer) my Vonage phone number to a competing service called Accessline. [They are like Google Voice but have been around for years]
The transfer took some work, and the new service provider has to be willing to go to bat for you. But in the end, if you want to dump Vonage, it is possible to keep your current Vonage number.
Thanks to small companies like Vonage, the consumers are getting eventually benefitted. I wish vonage had their own internet service (cable/dsl) to help their product better.
Look at the monopoly of these big companies (Cable, wireless, etc). Without companies like Vonage, we would be still discussing with telephone representatives about, dometic call rates in US based on per minute, calling areas, regional calling definition, weekend rates, off-peak rates, additional charges for one more telephone equipment at home,etc.
These small companies are exposing the vulnarabilities of big companies and exposing how inefficient they are.
After three months of problems with Vonage over billing & payments I really hope this company goes to the wall soon, companys here in the UK that operate like they do towards their customers don’t deserve to trade.
Just to put my 2 cents in, I currently use Vonage, and I honestly cannot find a service as cheap and as functional as Vonage for my purposes.
With AT$T, I have had one form of billing issue or another, I have had features changed on me without my authorization, etc. The same features I receive from Vonage would cost 3 times more after taxes and these esoteric fees from AT$T.
With Vonage I see my billing in real time through the online portal, I know where I stand with my international calls. For my purposes the clarity of calls to Bangladesh are top notch when compared to phonecards or when trying to use Skype. Its the least technical for a not so computer savvy family.
I have not tried GoogleVoice yet, I haven’t received an invite :(. I am also a Vonage shareholder, all 20 shares of them. I really like vonage, it is a great tool, and service. I would be disappointed if it was to cease functioning. Thank you