Stand Alone Voip Companies vs. Cable Companies
Rachael King has a great article over at BusinessWeek.com that gives a ton of good information on what is going on in the broadband phone industry right now. While I’ve been comparing Vonage with Sunrocket in my expectations that Vonage will go down the tube next, Ms. King has actually dug around and come up with the reasons this will probably happen.
According to Ms. King’s article, the people over at TeleGeography.com say that Comcast overtook Vonage back in March as the leader in VoIP customers. She also has information from other sources pointing out that the cable companies are going to dominate this industry because they can just bundle voip with their other products and offer specials that the stand alone VoIP companies can’t touch. They also already have a built in base of subscribers that they can leverage for next to nothing, instead of having to spend a ton on advertising.
According to the article, Vonage was actually spending $390.00 to sign up a customer who only paid them around $340.00 per year. Unless Vonage’s customers stay at least 14 months on average, then that is definitely a losing proposition for Vonage and it’s stockholders.
If you are a Vonage customer, you really need to read this article. If you have anything to add about the stand alone voip companies vs. the cable companies, or the fact that Sunrocket and Vonage were spending more money than they were bring in, and the fact that Vonage still may be, drop me a line and let me know.
Thanks,
Spiderman