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Vonage Losses, Subscriber Cancellations Increase

Marc Lefar, Vonage Chief Executive Officer .. "Not only is the business model solid, but the market opportunity for digital voice remains robust."

And there lies the problem. Subscribers are going down, losses are going up and Marc is sticking to "the plan". Vonage has remained a "one trick pony" since inception. They act like zombies, all they want to do is send you a device that is locked to their service with pre-paid plans and can't think outside of that box.

Here's my get well plan (BTW, I was a customer for 6 years and would still be if they hadn't raised the price of the 500 plan. The increase should have only been for new customers. Thanks so much for talking care of existing, and long term customers!)

1) Eliminate contracts, now at 2 years! Just plain stupid and scares away customers from ever signing up in the first place.

2) Offer Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plans. With "unlimited" plans most people are paying for service they do not use. Most of the smaller players are offering PAYG and savvy customers know that is all they need. And I'm talking about the industry average of $0.018/minute, not some nutty $0.04 or .05/per minute.

3) Allow Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) - That would open Vonage up to a whole new customer base. People that don't want to deal with the technical aspects and want a box that "just works" are going to continue to defect to the cable co's, for a long list of reasons. You need to expand your target market.

4) Eliminate Bogus Fees - Bogus fees like "Regulatory Recovery Fee" are the reason people started to abandon the telcos in the first place. Vonage's grab for cash sent them in the wrong direction.

5) New features, not higher priced plans - As widely discussed here, the new "Pro" plan is a pretty sad premium plan. Memo to Vonage: Fire the marketing staff. »Re: New features and CALL BLOCKING added

6) Make it easy to cancel - Mixed reports on this. However, forums are full of horror stories about how hard it is to cancel service. People are not going to sign up for something they don't think they can get out of. Vonage needs to allow customers to cancel service at a click of a button or email to customer service.

7) Cheaper Residential Plans - Make the $4.99 and $9.99 retention plans generally available to all with a click of the mouse. We already know about them!!

8) Hosted PBX for Business - Dudes! You have the infrastructure. Why are you not going after the more lucrative business customers. Sorry, sending a V-Portal to somebody is not offering business class service.

9) SIP Trunking - See items 2,3,8. Hello .. wake up.

After so many years in the business, Vonage should be a major player on many different levels. Instead they've been chained to the same residential customer model since inception. It really is a shame. Vonage has the brand recognition and the network behind it, but there has been a conscious decision not to capitalize on it. Shameful.

Does Vonage=SunRocket? If it stays on this track, the answer is yes. If somebody gets a spine and changes course, hopefully the answer will be no.

reply to priller

Their infrastructure is solid and robust, just not their business model. I liked the Vonage service, it worked well. Did not like locked adapters and the high prices. I just canceled this week and had their $9.99 plan which actually cost me $14.00. I now have the CallCentric PAYG (I love their webiste) and Telasip PAYG plans. Both work very well.
--
Atheists swear there is no Heaven, but pray there isn't a Hell.

reply to priller