I decided to start doing customer service and online sales. This, of course, required me to get off my butt and actually get my Zingotel router working. I spent about half the day yesterday going through their manuals and messing with my Linksys router, but that didn’t do anything but frustrate me.

So, today I got up and fired off an email to Zingotel customer service. I told them how my old router had worked fine until I fried it, but that when I hooked my new box up, it didn’t work. about an hour later, I got a call from India or Pakistan, and the guy on the other end tried to walk me through getting it working.

This guy was obviously 1st tier support, and he just went through most of the motions troubleshooting stuff I’d already done using their user’s manual. After about an hour, he said he was going to escalate it to tier 2 support, and that they would be giving me a call. (I thing that’s what he said, but since he was in India, talking on a VoIP line, and I was in America talking on a cell phone in my basement, he could have just said “htrn mjog, fngkdu nghguf dfbduy brtgfh nhgyteew, htngk loikuj.” and I wouldn’t have really known the difference.)

The tier 2 guy called a little while later, and that was a whole new, cool, experience. I worked tier 2 support in the old days for @Home, when they came out with the first cable internet service, and we had cool tools then, but this guy had even cooler stuff. He sent me to gotomeeting.com, gave me a log in number, and then took over my computer. It was weird watching him take control of my computer and run through my router, my modem and Zingotel’s router box.

But, it took well over an hour for him to get the dang thing working. What he finally had to do was kill the first phone port and run my calls through the second jack. Since I don’t have two numbers with them, that’s no big deal, but it does vindicate me a little that the problem was their box, and not just me being an idjit or something. The only thing that I really wish was that I’d done this 4 or 5 months ago, instead of paying a $100 for service I wasn’t getting. (My fault though, not theirs.)

So, if you need a voip provider, try Zingotel. Their customer service is good, and the phone now works awesome.

Share This

With Vonage taking care of all of their patent infringements, and their increased profitability, it sure looks like Vonage is on it’s way back from the brink of bankruptcy. Their 3rd quarter financial report for 2007 came out today, and their revenues were up 30% over the same quarter last year. With this type of growth, and the fact that they are doing better at keeping the money they do get, they might actually be a profitable company by next year.

Here are Vonage’s 3rd quarter financials

Share This

Click here if you have any questions about Opex VoIP or long distance service. The site is new, but if you have any questions, about any of their services, including local and cell service, don’t be afraid to ask.

Opex offers local only, or local combined with long distance, internet phone service plans. Their start up costs are more than most voip companies, but the rest of their fees and prices are about the same. They call their service Opex Internet Voice, if you ever need to ask questions about it.

Share This

Author: Spiderman

I got an email alert this morning that Sprint/Nextel had settled their patent dispute with Vonage. Wow, that was fast! It now looks like Vonage may be around awhile longer, at least until Verizon gets them back in court.

Here’s the the press release that I got this morning:

Sprint Nextel and Vonage Settle Patent Dispute

Settlement Terms Include One-Time Payment to Sprint and Licensing Agreement that Provides Vonage with Use of Sprint Patents

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. and HOLMDEL, N.J., Oct 08, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) and Vonage (NYSE: VG) today announced that they have settled their ongoing patent dispute and entered into a licensing arrangement under Sprint’s Voice over Packet (”VOP”) patent portfolio. On September 25, 2007, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents. The settlement agreement resolves all claims related to this dispute.

In addition, Sprint has agreed to license Vonage its VOP portfolio, which comprises more than 100 patents covering different methods, components and systems that efficiently connect telephone calls between a regular telephone network and a packet-switched network such as the Internet.

“We are pleased to resolve our dispute with Sprint and enter into a productive future relationship,” said Sharon O’Leary, Vonage chief legal officer.

“We view this settlement and licensing agreement as a validation of the strength and breadth of our patent portfolio,” said Harley Ball, Sprint Nextel’s vice president of intellectual property. “This is an affirmation of Sprint’s research and development and a testament to the rich history of innovation at Sprint Nextel.

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two robust wireless networks serving 54 million customers at the end of the second quarter 2007; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international walkie-talkie capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.

About Vonage

Vonage (NYSE: VG) is a leading provider of digital phone services with 2.45 million subscriber lines. Our award-winning technology enables anyone to make and receive phone calls with a touch tone telephone almost anywhere a broadband Internet connection is available. We offer feature-rich and cost- effective communication services that offer users an experience similar to traditional telephone services. Our Residential Premium Unlimited and Small Business Unlimited calling plans offer consumers unlimited local and long distance calling, and popular features like call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail — for one low, flat monthly rate. For more information about Vonage’s products and services, please visit www.vonage.com.

Vg-a

SOURCE Vonage

http://www.vonage.com

With over 100 VoIP patents from Sprint to choose from, they should now be able to really kick butt in the VoIP world. While I’ve always had problems with Vonage just taking what they want and moving on, now that they are paying at least some of the people who own the technology, I hope they make it. At least for the sake of their 2.5 million users.

Share This

Author Greg Anliker
I’m really surprised that no one called me on my spin of the Vonage story below. You do realize of course that they keep losing and are eventually going to go bankrupt, right?

I think that if you have a Vonage account, you might want to talk to another VoIP company now to see about getting a deal, and moving your account, before you wake up one morning and read that Vonage isn’t there any more.

If I was Vonage, I would sign up as a Packet8 affiliate, then just move all of my customers over to them. If you figure that Vonage could get at least $50 per customer, and probably $60, that would get Vonage’s investors $125,000,000 to $150,000,000 of their hard earned dollars back. LOL

Share This

Author: Greg Anliker:
Vonage announced that they have won, at least temporarily, their patent suite with Verizon. Verizon sued Vonage earlier this year and won 58 million dollars, plus interest, and an injunction against Vonage signing up any new customers using any of the three stolen patents that they got caught using. The injunction was dropped for existing customers using the stolen technology, as long as Vonage made quarterly payment of 5.5% of their bill to Verizon for any existing customers who were still using the technology stolen from Verizon. (I love saying “Stolen Technology”, it sounds so “Cold War-ish”. LOL)

Here’s some of what the Vonage press release had to say:

On September 26, 2007, the CAFC (United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) partially remanded the jury verdict that the Company infringed three Verizon patents. The CAFC remanded the infringement verdict on the 880 patent and affirmed the verdict on the 574 and 711 patents. Further, the CAFC vacated the entire award of $58 million in damages and the 5.5% royalty. The CAFC remanded the case to the U.S. District Court and directed that the court retry those aspects of the original case.

The press release also said that they were going to see if they could win the Sprint lawsuit that they lost a couple of days ago. If they can, then they won’t have to pay out any more money and may still be able to survive as the biggest stand alone VoIP company around.

To those of you who think I’m being unfair to Vonage when I keep saying “Stolen Technology”, you need to remember that they stole patented technology from Sprint and Verizon, and then also used a stolen customer list from Sunrocket to try to move customers after the “Death of Sunrocket” in July. As far as I’m concerned, since two juries of my peers have said that they were thieves, then they are thieves, even if bought and paid for judges throw out those verdicts.

On that note, go sign up for Packet8 or JoiPhone. LOL

Share This

Eric, over at A Penny Closer , pointed out that if you aren’t going to make very many calls on your broadband phone system, then you should sign up with a cheap voip company like Callcentric.

Callcentric offers 5 different plans, and one of them lets you just pay $1.95 per month for a regular phone number, and then just pay for the time you use the service. They also offer unlimited local and long distance phone service for $19.95 per month, just like most of the other companies out there. The thing that most people don’t realize, is that if they’re paying $19.95 per month for unlimited service, that they would save money by going with the $1.95 plan if they made less than 15.5 hours worth of calls per month. Or, if you use a company that charges $24.95 per month, you could make almost 20 hours worth of calls.

Go to Callcentric if you want more information.

Share This

8×8 announced today that they cut an exclusive deal with a broadband phone service provider that is going out of business. Unlike the big screw-up with SunRocket, the-as-yet-unnamed-company (Tayuc) is going to phase their service and customers out slowly, while they are [hopefully] being ported over to Packet8. This is a nice touch, considering the fiasco that was caused when SunRocket just shut their doors and walked away without telling anyone what was going on.

The exclusive deal being offered to Tayuc’s customer’s will included special monthly pricing, a free month of service and a free Uniden router/phone combination. Of course, if you go to their website now, and follow the directions, you can already get most of that special Packet8 deal right now, including the free Uniden router phone and the free month of VoIP service.

If you followed the Teleblend/Packet8 wrestling match, which involved 200,000+ old SunRocket customers, you know that after SunRocket closed it’s doors it cut a deal with Packet8 and Teleblend to pay SunRocket a fee for any of SunRocket’s old customers that converted to either Packet 8 or Teleblend. Read the 4th paragraph of the Packet8 press release where they mention that SunRocket chose them to continue VoIP service to SunRocket’s more than 200,000 customer. It’s just worth a little chuckle that they fail to mention that they were “One of Two Companies” chosen to handle the transition. I guess it’s just human nature to try to make yourself look better than you are. LOL

Share This

I received an email from a Teleblend customer who was asking me if I could help him cancel his Teleblend account. Here’s what I sent him:

Dear XXXXX,

I don’t sell service for Teleblend, but their site is http://myteleblend.net/
For sales and billing related questions please call 877-488-5519.
For support related questions please call 877-252-4548.
Or you can e-mail them at info@teleblend.net.

Since I run a site talking about VoIP providers, can you send me a detailed report on how their service was and what you liked and didn’t like about using them? Please?

Thanks,

XXXXXX

This is what he wrote back.

When Sun Rocket went out of business I transferred my account to Teleblend. Their service is totally unsatisfactory. I have a difficult time communicating with them. It’s very difficult to contact them and I would categorize their service as lousy! I cancelled my service with them but am not sure whether they got my notice. They do not respond.

Does anyone else have a good or bad story about a VoIP provider that they have dealt with? There are a lot of potential VoIP customer that you could help by posting your stories.

Thanks,

Spiderman

Share This

I was reading the news releases over on 8×8.com today, and they just got another patent. I don’t know what the patent does, because it looks like the person who wrote the press release didn’t know what it did either, or they didn’t want to give too much information away.

Let’s see if I can describe what the new patent is about…… I recognized the word “Voice”, but that’s about it. Does anyone know what anything in this statement means?

The invention covered by the patent relates generally to speech signal processing and, more specifically, to multi-pulse speech analysis and synthesis systems. According to certain embodiments, the invention provides a speech processing method and arrangement including a process applicable for use in connection with various standard speech encoding recommendations. Certain embodiments of the invention are also applicable to multipulse, maximum likelihood quantization coding systems and processes.

Oh, wait, if they would have just explained that, “Certain embodiments of the invention are also applicable to multipulse, maximum likelihood quantization coding systems and processes“, then it would have cleared up a lot of my confusion early on in the paragraph. Now I know exactly what the product, uh process, uh, thingy…. does. LOL

If you want to see if you can figure it out and come back here and tell the rest of us, the news release is located here.

Share This