Like the AOL of old, Vonage has cultivated quite a reputation as a company that often makes it incredibly difficult to actually cancel your service. The check for this behavior has finally come due, and it's likely considerably less than they made from the practice. According to an announcement posted to the website of Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, Vonage has agreed to pay $3 million in penalties to 32 states in order to settle an investigation into some of its business practices. The settlement also cites Vonage for failing to note their VoIP service needed broadband and then socking customers with cancellation fees, and for offers of "free" services that wound up charging a litany of activation and other fees.

Comcast is reportedly in the midst of testing femtocells, devices which essentially act as an indoor tower for wireless voice and data services -- allowing you to place calls over your home broadband connection. Comcast's investment deal with Clearwire included a provision that set aside 5 MHz of spectrum solely for WiMAX femtocells, but an anonymous source tells Fierce Wireless that deployment of the service won't happen until next year -- if it happens at all. Comcast of course offers re-branded Clearwire wireless broadband service as part of a new suite of bundles being offered in three markets so far. Ultimately, Clearwire and Comcast will likely deploy voice services over the Mobile WiMax network. Given the initial problems users are seeing with Clearwire signal, femtocells will likely be a necessary evolution.

Last month AT&T announced that they'd no longer be blocking VoIP programs like Skype from working over 3G. AT&T said they were taking a "fresh look" at VoIP capabilities on iPhone for use on AT&T's 3G network, and the move was soundly heralded by both the press and the FCC as a step in the right direction.

A new report by Infonetics Research indicates that VoIP service generated a whopping $21 billion for global service providers during the first half of 2009. The majority of that revenue came from residential VoIP service, and as most of you are aware, the majority (more than 90%) of the residential VoIP industry is now dominated by the biggest cable TV operators.

We've frequently explored how a growing number of VoIP companies were blocking FreeConferencecall.com, because the service relies on a practice known as "traffic pumping," a regulatory loophole that allows small, rural telcos to sock bigger carriers with huge connectivity fees. A few years back, AT&T tried to block access to such services but were yelled at by the FCC because it breaks common carrier laws.

Previously, Google Voice required that you create a new number for use with the platform, which allows you to manage multiple numbers while offering services like voicemail transcription and free SMS. According to a post over at the Google blog, you can now use your existing number with the service, though not all functionality will work -- such as automated voicemail transcription, call recording, and different voicemail greetings for different callers. As we discussed the other day, many people don't understand yet how products like Google Voice will seriously disrupt the traditional phone empire, and leeching voicemail functionality away from the telcos continues the evolution.

As we've been exploring, both AT&T and Verizon absolutely despise Google. Why? Because the company represents an Internet future where phone companies are relegated to "dumb pipe" network operators, and more innovative and adaptable companies wind up making a killing in the content and service business.

Expanding on and confirming our post from last week confirming Comcast's new Homepoint wireless VoIP handset, Comcast reach out to us today with a little more detail on the service. According to the nation's largest cable company, the service is only going to initially available in Denver Colorado and Fort Myers, Florida -- but Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas tells us "other markets will be forthcoming." As we noted last week the service costs $5 per month, replacing the $3 per month VoIP hardware rental fee. Comcast tells us they're offering users a HD Triple Play customers with HomePoint for $114.99 with a free handset. The company also says existing video and broadband customers are getting a $24.99/mo for 6 month CDV offer with HomePoint.

Last week we noted how AT&T managed to very cleverly deflect attention from AT&T and Apple's own anti-competitive behavior by highlighting how Google Voice blocks FreeConferenceCall.com. Of course everybody these days is blocking such services, including Speakeasy, Level 3, Viatalk, Magic Jack, Google and even at one point AT&T, but don't tell a well lobbied Congress that.

If you recall, AT&T and Apple caused waves back in March for crippling Skype for the iPhone so that it would only work via Wi-Fi. Why? Having it work over 3G would present a threat to AT&T voice revenues, and treating Skype VoIP as just data (which it is) is thereby prohibited under AT&T's deal with Apple.

Vonage this morning announced that the VoIP provider has released free downloadable VoIP applications for both the Blackberry and the iPhone. According to Vonage, the Blackberry version of the application will only work via cellular/3G networks, on any carrier. Despite AT&T and Apple's history and business agreement, the iPhone version of the application will allow calls over Wi-Fi and AT&T's cellular network, though for the latter you'll have to dial in to a local access number and customers will be charged AT&T minutes (you wouldn't want voice to be just data leaving AT&T as just a dumb pipe provider, would you?). According to Vonage, the applications will support Vonage World customers by the end of the year.

Harold Feld drops us a line to note that Speakeasy is the latest carrier to block customer access to free Iowa-based conference call companies, an e-mail informing Speakeasy VoIP customers that their terms of service have been modified to also alert customers to the change. Speakeasy of course isn't the first -- FreeConferenceCall.com has also been blocked in recent weeks by Magic Jack and Google Voice.

Users in our VoIP forum indicate that VoIP provider Callcentric has been having a national outage since around 11AM EST, something users say is fairly uncommon for the operator. The company's website has also been up and down for much of the day. "All our engineers and developers were notified about 30 seconds after it started by both internal and external monitoring systems," says the company. "We sincerely apologize for this outage and once we have restored service we will be investigating the cause further." These are the kinds of outages VoIP operators can't afford to have with cable operators consistently gobbling up the lion's share of VoIP customers.

As we discussed at length last week, network neutrality is about incumbent phone companies trying to hold on to market power in the face of Internet evolution, some of which just happens to be coming from Google. One such example is how AT&T and Apple (despite denials) prevented Google Voice from coming to the iPhone, in order to protect the companies' mobile OS and MMS/voice businesses.

If you've paid attention, you know the modern "network neutrality" debate took off in 2005, when then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proudly, though dumbly, proclaimed that Google got a "free ride" on his network. According to Ed, this unfairness could only be rectified by charging companies who already pay for bandwidth money to ensure their traffic reaches AT&T consumers quickly.

J.D. Power and Associates has released their 2009 Residential Telephone Customer Satisfaction Study, which breaks down the best performing residential phone providers in four geographic regions (east, west, north central and south).

Comcast today announced that they hope to eventually bring both voice and mobile video services to their Mobile WiMax service, which the company launched earlier this year as part of a partnership with Clearwire. Speaking to analysts at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference, Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis proclaimed there are ongoing discussions about offering voice via 4G, but it's too early to announce details. Hopefully the plan goes more smoothly that the cable industry's now-defunct Pivot project. Back in 2007, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts seemed unimpressed with the idea of offering a so-called "quadruple play" of wireless, broadband, VoIP and TV -- but apparently the boss is changing his mind.

Customers of VoIP operator Broadvox Direct (see our user reviews) write us to note that they've received an e-mail saying the company is pushing their residential VoIP customers off on a company by the name of Phone Power. In much the same way DSL provider Speakeasy did in the residential broadband space, Broadvox at some point made the decision that the real money was in the small business voice space, and that residential users just weren't worth their time.

You might recall back in 2007, when the FCC told the major phone companies they couldn't ban user access to free Iowa-based conference call operators. While those operators were using regulatory loopholes to milk giant telcos, blocking customer access to services of their choice was frowned upon.

According to a press release, eBay today announced that they'll be selling about 65% of Skype to a group of private investors. According to eBay, the deal values the company at around $2.75 billion. eBay paid $2.1 billion (closer to $3 billion if you include bonus incentives for Skype’s shareholders) when they acquired the company in 2005 with plans to tightly integrate Skype functionality into eBay auction systems. In a blog post, Skype boss Josh Silverman says the deal "begins a new chapter" for the voice outfit with "a new group of owners who believe passionately in our mission." According to Skype and eBay, the voice operators generates about $600 million a year in revenues.