Judge imposes Vonage injunction

[lanlady]

Source: Business Week

A judge issued an injunction Friday that effectively bars Internet phone carrier Vonage from signing up new customers as punishment for infringing on patents held by Verizon. Vonage planned an immediate appeal...




Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OB69KO0.htm

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I've had Vonage for nearly 3 years. It has saved me hundreds of $$. Vonage appears to be hanging on for dear life now. I DON'T want to have to switch to friggin' Comcast for my VoIP service.

More on the impact of the ruling:

Patent Ruling Impact
The Internet Phone Upstart Could Lose a Technology and a Future

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007; Page D01

Verizon has thrown a lifeline to rival Vonage Holdings, suggesting that the Internet phone provider could continue serving its customers despite a judge's ruling ordering it to stop using a crucial technology connecting its network to the public telephone system.

The compromise proposal came this week ahead of a hearing in Alexandria today that could decide the fate of the heavily marketed Vonage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502116.html

[silverweb]

1. Uh-oh.

I have Skype. I wonder if this will affect them, as well....

[Eurobabe]

2. I've been with Vonage for 4 years!! I have the V-phone

and use it overseas. No one else has this technology (VoIP phone on a USB stick) I am seriously going to cry if they shut down. :mad: :mad:

[Autumn Colors]

3. Try ViaTalk

The only negative thing I've heard about them (which wasn't an issue for me) is that it can take a while to port a current phone number to them. If you don't mind getting a brand new phone number, then it should be fine.

I'm using them for my business and it's saved me a lot as well. The sound quality has been the same as my land line was.

The best part of the savings for me is that instead of having my few clients call me on a toll free number (since I'm long distance for them), I got a couple of virtual numbers in their towns and they have a local phone number to call me on for free and it only costs me an additional $3.95 per month. Win-win.

They're at www.viatalk.com

I would NOT recommend using VoiceEclipse. I had been using their service, but switched due to the frequency of outages and difficulty getting through on phone tech support (nearly impossible).

[lanlady]

19. thanks for the tip

I'll check them out if Vonage goes down. I don't mind getting a new number. But I'm really bummed. Are all the start-up VoIP players at risk now?

[CookCountyResident]

4. Sorry but we had CRUMMY service with Vonage

We had a terrible time with Vonage at work - 4 line phone system plus fax line. The faxes didn't go through more than half the time - probably data transfer rate bottomed out. And the lines were full of static all the time. We ended up switching to SBCGlobal.

[lpbk2713]

5. Verizon's *compassion* is transparent.

They want to set Vonage up for a leveraged buyout for pennies on the dollar. Then they will pull the plug on all (former) Vonage customers or jack up the rates so ridiculously high that it will make the customer base leave 'voluntarily'.

[Kagemusha]

8. Sounds about right to me.

Poster #7 may well be right about this being another abuse of the patent system too. Wouldn't be the first time a judge has gone along with such schemes.

[BrklynLiberal]

16. Wow. I'll bet you are right!

[damntexdem]

6. Ooh-ooh ooh-ohh-ooh.

Ooh-ooh ooh-ohh-ooh.

[anotherdrew]

7. the patent is bullshit and should never have been awarded

just more corporate welfare by exploiting the legal system

[Rowdy Church]

9. VERIZON Can Bite Me!

I've had Vonage for over 4 years now at home and have had zero problems with their quality of service and line quality.

I have saved hundreds of dollars for land-line service and enjoy the feature that allow me to route my voice messages to my email.

I refuse to go back to Ma-Bell for telephone service (whatever they are calling themselves now). Not to mention that what Comcast (my internet provider) charges for VOIP is equivalent to assrape compared to Vonage.

I will never use Verizon if they end up closing down Vonage.

NOTE: To the poster who said that Vonage took forever to Port an existing number. The porting process is not completely within Vonage's control - the original service provider has to initiate the process and in many cases can be slow to respond to port requests. Each and every time I've assisted anyone porting over to Vonage from a previous carrier it always goes without a hitch.

[IChing]

10. the judge is a right wing

From:Robbien----http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=590746&mesg_id=591379

Dateline -- ALEXANDRIA, Virginia -- Ever heard of Judge Claude Hilton?

In case you are not familiar with the name, allow The Doc to elucidate. Earlier this week, Judge Hilton rebuffed Julie Hiatt Steele's request that the government reimburse her for attorneys' fees -- thousands upon thousands of dollars she incurred during allegedly Independent Kenneth Starr's attempt to railroad her for throwing a monkey wrench in his persecution of President Clinton. Starr's office charged Steele with lying -- and the press largely played into Starr's hand in their reportage, practically refusing to mention the fact that Steele's attorney Nancy Luque utterly destroyed the credibility of Starr's case, Starr's witnesses, and Starr's staff.

I digress... but only slightly.

In his ruling, Judge Hilton claimed -- catch this -- that "the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable trier of fact to find the defendant guilty."

"Reasonable trier of fact?" The jury was HUNG. Yes, it was hung 9-3 in favor of conviction -- but you may not know that the foreman of the jury was reportedly a "lurker" on the FreeRepublic web site. That's right -- the Clinton-hating site filled with death threats against the First Family and all form of lies about Steele. The Doc won't burder you with the preponderance of ties FreeRepublic has to ultra-right organizations and causes -- but will remind you that such conservative stalwarts as Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge have severed relations with the site in recent months.

But I digress...

"Reasonable?" What would be reasonable, Judge Hilton, is an investigation of the jury foreman and his conduct.

However, we're not surprised at all at the "reasonable" Hilton upon learning the following tidbit. A tip of the Gonzo hat to APJ reader Norma, who passed along this "fun fact" about Judge Claude Hilton: a couple years back, this judicial genius told the court, in the case of Kahn v. Xerox (96-622-A U.S. Dist. Court Va.), that it is ok to allow the disabled to suffer because "everyone feels pain."

http://www.americanpolitics.com/081499DISpatch.html


No surprise he ruled in favor of big corporate profits here and against the common good.

[Roland99]

11. Perhaps there is hope on the appeal then?

[IChing]

14. I worry about other VOIP carriers also

I have VOIP but not Vonage.
I hope it will be appealed,
Vorizon sucks,
they are the reason I got VOIP in the first place,
because their shitty monopoly and phone service in my area

[ClintonTyree]

12. But I thought they were all for the "free market"?

I guess that's only in affect when one of the companies involved isn't a huge contributor to their political party? :shrug: Vonage better learn to pony up to the Reich-Wing like Verizon does. Otherwise the "free market" will shit them down.

[Chico Man]

13. I use Vonage

I have my voicemails sent to my email and it totally kicks ass.. I will be depressed if it shuts down.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. My switch to Vonage was finalized today. hmmmm

The service so far has been perfect.
Setup was a breeze.
Sound quality has been fine.
I kept my old number that I have had for over 20 years.
Love getting emails that I have a voicemail.
No complaints at all.

Hope Vonage wins on appeal.

[Missy Vixen]

17. We've also saved hundreds of dollars during the two years we've been with Vonage

Even when our power was out after the windstorms in Western Washington for over a week, we're still with Vonage. If they are forced to shut down, we'll simply go to cell phones and have no land line at all.

Sorry, Verizon, you're not getting one more cent of our money.

Julie

[blitzen]

18. UPDATE: Temporary stay on ruling, pending appeal

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17982142/

Internet phone company Vonage Holdings Corp. can continue to sign up new customers after the an appeals court reversed a judge’s ruling earlier in the day.

In that earlier ruling Vonage Holdings Corp. would have been barred from signing up new customers as punishment for infringing on patents held by Verizon Communications Inc., under an injunction ordered Friday.

The injunction was to take effect Thursday, but the company was granted a temporary stay from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which will allow Vonage to sign up new customers until the court rules on its appeal.

[lanlady]

20. phew!

There's still hope.