VoIP News

Vonage Holdings Corp. has filed a motion for review of a U.S. Appeals Court’s decision to uphold Verizon’s parent infringement victory against the struggling broadband phone provider.

The Appeals Court ruled on September 26 that Vonage had infringed on two of Verizon’s patents, and upheld a lower court decision ordering the Vonage to pay damages and royalties to the telecom giant.

Vonage has been hit with a number of legal setbacks since its initial public offering in May 2006, causing its stock to plummet 89% in a seventeen-month period.

The company did manage to settle a similar patent lawsuit with Sprint Nextel Corp. earlier this week, however, and said that it would “explore all legal options available to put the Verizon litigation to rest,” indicating that compromise is one possible outcome in this case.

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American wireless giant, Sprint Nextel Corp., has agreed to drop its massive patent infringement lawsuit against Vonage Holdings Corp., in exchange for a one-time cash settlement of $80 million.

A federal court jury ruled in Sprint’s favour last month, ordering Vonage to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus future royalties. The VoIP provider had planned to appeal this verdict, but said that the settlement deal will help it concentrate on growing its struggling broadband phone business.

“It allows us to put this litigation behind us and continue to focus on our core business by removing the uncertainty of legal reviews and long-term court action,” explained Vonage’s general counsel, Sharon O’Leary.

Vonage shares surged $1.42, or 123.5% yesterday, to close at $2.57 on the New York Stock Exchange, indicating that the Sprint settlement has put some hope back into the hearts of Vonage investors. The company’s shares are still worth only a fraction of their $17 IPO price, however, and have a long way to go to recover from their almost continual seventeen-month slide.

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Most consumers have heard of Voice over IP these days, but only a small percentage use it for their primary phone line.

When average consumers research VoIP on the internet, they are often daunted by the confusing myriad of startup companies offering various types of IP telephony and “digital phone” services. Sure, these services seem like a great deal, especially for long distance calls, but severing your relationship with the faceless yet reliable phone company that you’ve dealt with for years or even decades can be a scary idea.

News of SunRocket’s recent bankruptcy and Vonage’s ongoing legal problems have made customers even more cautious when it comes to next-generation phone companies. To assume that the entire VoIP business is unstable or “a scam,” however, is an unfair generalization. These companies are doing just what every telecommunications carrier does: provide phone service for a monthly fee.

For those who want to save money by migrating to VoIP, it’s good to start simple, by checking out a VoIP comparison service like VoIPAdvisor.org.

VoIP Advisor provides a simple comparison table outlining the key features of five leading pure-play VoIP providers – Vonage, VoIP.com, Lingo, Via:Talk, and Packet8.

All five companies have their strengths and weaknesses, in terms of both price and features, but the owners of VoIP Advisor seem to have picked VoIP.com as their top all-round recommendation. In fact, they’re even generous enough to give new VoIP.com subscribers a free $25 sign-up bonus, which undoubtedly comes out of their own referral commission.

In addition to the comparison table, VoIP Advisor offers a quick run down of the advantages and disadvantages of IP voice technology. They’re claim that “digital lines increase the quality of your calls” is a little bit questionable, in my opinion, since this really depends on the network being used. One thing I would have liked to see is an on-site rating interface allowing existing subscribers of Vonage, VoIP.com, Lingo, Via:Talk, and Packet8 to provide feedback on each company’s call quality.

VoIP Advisor could also use some kind of “About Us” page, where visitors can find out more about the people running the site, and contact them with questions and concerns. Given that the owner of the site claims to be a “VoIP Advisor,” some personal details and contact information would inspire greater visitor confidence.

All in all, I find VoIP Advisor to be a useful and accurate reference service, and definitely worth looking at if you’re a VoIP newbie. The site is very basic, and shouldn’t be the only factor in your decision to embrace VoIP, but it’s a good place to start at the very least.

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Today we sent out a press release formally announcing the JAJAH Application Programming Interface (API). The API allows partners to integrate JAJAH’s calling solutions into their own Web-based properties to bring added value to their customers.

Each JAJAH application is tailored to meet individual business needs. The JAJAH API allows businesses and online services to integrate customized Voice 2.0 features and click-to-call solutions
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Already more than 20.000 businesses are using JAJAH to save money on international calling.

In the past months we have seen a strong increase in usage of JAJAH by businesses worldwide. The growth has been primarily driven by the JAJAH plugin for Microsoft Outlook and the highly acclaimed JAJAH Conference Call solution.

Now we are widening our offer for business users who use IBM Lotus software. JAJAH has entered a partnership
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It’s that time of year again. Summer is winding down and school is ramping up. As a way of supporting students everywhere, we have assembled a package of web based services designed to make the transition back to school just a little bit easier and a whole lot cheaper.

Included in the Students Survival Kit are well known apps like Wikipedia, Facebook and Flickr, along with other emerging solutions like Plazes and Sputtr - check it out at www.SchoolSurvivalKit.com
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The “Testimonial” section has been sleeping for way to long and I just stumbled over a really nice on.

“Guys you got to take a look at the VoIP service provided by Jajah.com. The clarity of a regular phone with the rates of a normal VoIP service. Actually you use your own cell phone to call the other cellphone using VoIP technology. Sound is crystal clear. Take a look at it.”

Thank you sigs for the kind words!
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Recently, JAJAH has been gaining ground in India. As we’ve mentioned, India is the fastest growing telephony market in the world so it pleases us that we have successfully introduced ourselves to this great country.

Our effort to create awareness was helped out last week by great coverage by several Indian newspapers, The Times of India, The indUS Business Journal and Express Computer. But the jewel in the crown of our coverage has to be this coverage by CNN India, featuring Vikram Venkateswaran.
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Here’s the first real-life, this-is-how-it-works-in-a-daily-scenarion use of the new and shiny JAJAH Buttons: People using the Buttons to talk to each other to close eBay deals! Ingenious!

JAJAH users/eBay Powersellers can now place a simple and stylish Button into their eBay marketplace, eBay Stores and eBay Motors auction and allow bidders to call them before they buy and pay, whilst keeping contact details completely private. The
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JAJAH Buttons! They’re here!

We have just launched our new JAJAH Buttons - arguably the funkiest new service of the year. Users create a slim and stylish JAJAH Button to place on their websites, email signatures, blogs and social network profiles – wherever they travel throughout the web. Initiating a call through a JAJAH Button is as easy as entering your own phone number and clicking ‘Call’. All at absolutely no cost to the caller: phone-to-phone, no download, no headset, no broadband, globally.
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