Thanks for returning. You're a very smart person.
Russell Shaw asked, in a post tonight, why has Vonage stopped selling WiFi Phones.
Russell, I have the answer:
They suck.
It is not really the WiFi phone, or the manufacturers behind them, it is the mere fact that the increased number of “moving pieces” creates a customer service and quality of service nightmare for Vonage. As a someone who has used a half dozen or so WiFi phones, I can tell you that in many cases the user experience is less than optimal and while I chalk this up to a poor connection, many a end user, who is probably less informed about the technology would blame Vonage.
More so, I bet to venture that more than 95% of the people who purchase a WiFi phones expect them to work like a cellular phone. And because of this, the end user would likely place a support call to Vonage, and over time I imagine that Vonage was receiving more customer service calls about the WiFi phone than any other device they offered.
From that, I imagine the decision to yank the WiFi phone was nothing more than a move to improve the customer experience and minimize the cost associated with an increased number of customer support calls. Hopefully one day WiFi phone technology will progress to the point where it works well enough for the mass market consumer, but unfortunately I don’t see that day coming very soon.
{ 7 trackbacks }
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to agree….WiFi phones are problematic, as a whole,,,they are subject to the following issues, not in any particular order:
1 - Lousy battery life. About 2 hours of talk time and 24 hour standby if you are lucky. Plus the only way to charge the battery is the plug in the phone, there are no WiFi phone manufacturers that I am aware of that make a battery only charging station which would allow you to have a “hot spare” charging at all times….which would be a bitch even if they did, but less of a bitch. It’s like Nasa built this bitchen new mars rover, thing does everything, tons of technology in it….cost a fortune…..but they neglected to put wheels on it. Doh!
2 - SIP registration coma - Many of the these phones, especially behind NAT, have a tendency to go into a coma. Calls will go right to VM even though the phone appears to the user to be functioning normally.
3 - Customer service - For the average Vonage customer, just plugging an analog phone into the FXS port on the Vonage device is akin to understanding the Pythagorean theorem. Adding WiFi to the mix just increases the level of technical competence for the user exponentially. What makes it more problematic for Vonage is that the average Vonage customer actually believes themselves to be technically competent (i.e a “techie”) This is worse for Vonage than if the customer was recently exhumed and thawed from a prehistoric glacier in Greenland. I could deal with a tech support call from a caveman, but a call from Bradley in suburban NJ with a wireless router behind his ISP provided router, both handing out DHCP and he’s telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about….no thanks.
4 - Portability - This is an education issue. There is a perception on part of the average mass consumer that a WiFi phone could simply replace their expensive mobile phone plan from Verizon, AT&T of whomever they are currently being raped by for cellular service. This is not the case. Best case scenario, you need to find a wide open access point , with no authentication required, and then cross your fingers, click your heels 3 times, spin 6 times counterclockwise, and pray that your phone takes a DHCP address.
If residential customers want some limited mobility with their Vonage service (and by mobility I mean within their own home or backyard), I suggest buying a tradition 5.8GHz wireless phone from Uniden or a similar manufacturer from your local Walmart, Office Depot, etc. You’ll be much happier. You won’t be able to make VoIP calls at the foodcourt in your local mall….but c’mon …what do you think this is 2008 or something?
I think Vonage is doing the right thing by sh@#canning their WiFi phone offering. If you noticed….their recently released VPortal ATA includes an onboard LCD screen that tells you what your upstream bandwidth is. I think this is also a feature to help out their customer service reps, since the upstream pipe, especially on the anemic data plans doled out with offerings like Verizon ADSL, are a serious bottleneck when Chris is seeding 15 AVI files on Bittorrent and downloading another 5, and is wondering why the quality of the Vonage call he just made was horrible. Dude….you’ve got about 4Kbps of available upstream bandwidth there Chachi…ease up on the filesharing a bit….
Agreed, WiFi VoIP phones don’t work well, and when you combine that with Vonage’s desire to reduce their customer churn rate, I’m sure Vonage pulled the product themselves. More on my blog at http://ikeelliott.typepad.com/telecosm/2008/01/wifi-voip-takes.html
You know, it’s simpler than you think. Remember that patent suit with Vonage and Verizon? Yea, that one… Patent 6359880 - Public wireless/cordless internet gateway. Yea, that one. So, you know Verizon has a patent on WiFi phones? Federal court (and the apellate court) upheld that patent and its application to wifi phones. That’s the reason for its removal. Hard to have a work around during the appeals for something you can’t work around; a patent so specifically broad that it covers any type of wireless, be it cellular, wifi, bluetooth, zigbee, ultrawideband, etc. With their first step into suing Cox, I’m wondering when Verizon will take Skype/Ebay to court.
For SOHO users with business class requirements the newly emerging SIP DECT systems from Snom and Polycon/Kirk are a really good option. Even better than an ATA & traditional cordless phone, although that a great option for home users.
@Jim:
Interesting theory, though I am not totally convinced.
@Michael:
I have to agree that DECT is a great option.
It just works.
I believe it will be the preferred wireless telephony solution for businesses in the very near future.
I have the vonage phone and have used it since Vonage released it. I live in U.S. have anytime I found open wifi, my phone has worked. In locked areas, such as my house and a friend of mine, I put in the code and then access the wifi network onto Vonage.
When I was in Paris, there were two cafes with open wifi and my phone worked as if I were in the states!
Now, my phone is getting old and I need a replacement. I can’t find one except Skype wifi phone which is sold in Europe. If I were traveling to Europe soon I would buy one there since I can option the Skype to work with vonage.
It’s a good cheap cost, I can phone anywhere and the only connection I need is wifi. If I am out of reach of an open network, I have voice mail.
Shame Vonage isn’t calling them anymore!
Leave a Comment