A story in today’s National Post, the USA Today of Canada, Paul Kedrosky of Financial Post questions the viability of Vonage long term.
The key point he brings up is the sleeping giants. The RBOCs which have been either waiting or letting the VoIP world pass them by.
He also draws a comparison to @HOME, the dot*bomb high speed Internet company that was working with the cable operators. While the linkage could be drawn due to the way Vonage markets and hypes themselves I see a few differences:
1) @Home had to build a network. Vonage uses the network that already is there
2) Vonage is going after the business of a second line. @Home wanted to take people away from dial up who had no idea what broadband was all about.
3) The Vonage executive team are smart. @HOME’s were on valuation driven ego trips.
4) The Vonage team watches every penny. @HOME’s were watching the stock market ticker
Read the article as the Canadian perspective is actually quite refreshing…
I read this this morning with my coffee and was surprised at the lack of knowledge of the article. I agree with your points 100%.
Vonage doesn’t require the connection to the home to sell the service. I might agree that they will finally end up a niche player, but a global niche player with a lot of long distance traffic. But it’s not like the Cox/Comcast/Rogers of the world can actually shut them out.
Rogers bad experience with @home will make them hesitant to be a partner with a cable company, but they can certainly make some inroads here.