Hi,
I personally don't like Vonage (VG) stock. Not only that, I don't think VOIP as a primary business is feasible with the way the internet is today.
I'm not saying Vonage is a bad company. I just feel it is a bad investment. Vonage can be a GREAT trade - just short it!
I have a close friend who has Vonage service. He had nothing but problems when he first started his service. Repeated calls to Vonage support people were unable to rectify his problem. Eventually he decided to cancel and was hoping for a refund - which they promptly denied giving him. Ultimately, Vonage did try to resolve his problems by replacing all of his equipment. My friend is now able to actually use his VOIP service and it works flawlessly now.
Vonage stated in their prospectus that they may never even turn a profit, largely due to heavy competition. I think competition, especially from free services such as Skype, are going to be the collapse of Vonage. Unless they can offer some kind of truly unique services or incentives. Skype may not be the best, but it's free, and with consumers free goes a long way.
I work in IT and some of my close friend are VOIP enthusiasts. One of my friends has created his own personal VOIP system, for free, which has all of the same features as Vonage. If some techy can create a great VOIP service for free, what is going to keep Vonage customers from ditching Vonage and switching to another VOIP provider?
I think one way for free VOIP providers to generate revenues is to place advertisements at the beginning of phone calls. Something like a 15 or 30 second advertisement for a local or national business can go a long way. Then the primary income would be from selling advertising... like Google... not from selling a monthly service and trying to keep your current customers.
I'm wondering if anyone is using a free VOIP service such as Skype or one of the many others, and if you can offer a comparison between Vonage service and a free service. Is Vonage really that much better? Vonage may be better now, but what about in 1 year from now? The internet changes very rapidly and it doesn't look like Vonage will be able to compete in the future...