A struggling VoIP company everyone thought would be dead by now partners with a CLEC everyone thought would be dead by now to resell broadband. Sound like a good idea to you? Vonage, still trying to dig out of their financial hole, has announced they've partnered with Covad to resell DSL service. It looks like they won't be reselling faster Covad's faster ADSL2+ tiers, but slower 3-6Mbps connectivity. Says Vonage CEO Jeff Citron:I hate to break the news to Jeff, but the Vonage "brand," aside from being linked with that annoying song, is being associated with financial strife and annoying cancellation policies. Citron made customer retention his number one priority, and while revenue grew slightly, first quarter earnings show customer churn increased from 3 to 3.3%. At that rate, Vonage is forced to replace more than a third of their customers every year.

Maybe reselling a DSL double play will keep Vonage from being run over by cable operators on the VoIP highway, but probably not. An analyst recently told me that cable operators now control more than 80% of the VoIP market, and that number continues to rise, largely thanks to triple play introductory offers.