This is kind of a rambling rant against Frontier and Vonage….

For months now, I’ve been giving thought to switching my home phone from my current provider, Frontier, to an VoIP service like Vonage. I currently have two numbers with Frontier, one is dedicated voice and the other is fax. Neither line gets much usage… maybe a combined 20 minutes a month for local calling, and rarely is there any long distance. Now when you throw in all the fees and taxes, I’m shelling out around $83.00 per month for a phone service I don’t use a whole lot. - That’s almost a grand a year… a grand that could go toward a new computer, house furnishings, or something else.

I’m sure by now everyone has seen the Vonage commercials on TV. They’ve got an annoying jingle that you just can’t mistake. If you haven’t seen it on TV, then you may have walked past a display set up in BestBuy, Circuit City, or another electronic store. It’s all over the place here in Knoxville. They offer VoIP service for about $25 per month. Not bad.

But that’s the problem. All the advertising on TV and in local stores, yet Vonage is not available in Knoxville as one would expect. It’s very misleading and borderlines false advertising.

You see, you can buy and use the Vonage service in Knoxville, but you will not be able to get a phone number with the 865 area code. Because VoIP service isn’t like traditional land lines, you can use VoIP service with virtually any area code. This means someone in Maine could have a California area code that would ring at their house in Maine. This is something that is great for businesses, but not so useful for the average Joe.

Currently Vonage only offers the following TN area codes:

• 615
• 731
• 901
• 931

That’s basically all of middle Tennessee and Memphis. I’m sorry, but a Nashville or Memphis number is next to useless for me. Now granted, most VoIP services don’t have long distance fees so if I had a Nashville number and wanted to call the Knoxville area, I wouldn’t have a problem. Though what if someone in Knoxville wanted to call me? It’d be long distance for them. Friends, family, co-workers, even my next door neighbor would be charged. Doesn’t make much since, does it? — Though, on the bright side, I guess it would keep people from calling and bothering you, eh? :p

While Vonage may be the largest and most recognized VoIP provider it isn’t the only one. In fact, because Vonage has been unable to offer the 865 area code, I’m giving much thought to trying another company, SunRocket. You may have seen their advertising banners on websites all over the place.

They offer service for $200 per year. And the best part about it, the service is available with an 865 area code. I’m still looking into the company and the service, but it may well end up being who I go with. If anyone out there has experience with SunRocket, please let me know! I’d love to hear what you think.

I think people probably got tired of hearing me rant about how much I hated Sprint when the Sprint Nextel merger was announced. Those were some sad days for me. :/ I was a happy and proud customer of Nextel Communications. I still believe that Nextel was the best cell provider I had ever used (over USCellular, Sprint PCS, Version, and Cingular).

I hopped from one cell company to another as I would get frustrated, or in the case of Sprint, outright pissed with the service and company in general. So, when the Sprint Nextel deal was announced, and long before it was finalized, I dropped Nextel and went to Cngular.

Well, I can see the greedy, money loving, bastards are up to no good again. Sprint Nextel is suing Vonage and Voiceglo, another VoIP service provider, for “VoIP Patent Infringement“.

So the question to ask now is why now? Why single out Vonage, the largest VoIP service provider? How did they infringe the patents? What about all the other VoIP providers?

Kind of humorous that they choose to only go after the “top dog”.

I had never heard of kuro5hin.org, until I saw a Slashdot story linked to them.

Anyway, they have an interesting article up titled, “Who Will Google Buy Next?” The article provides a list of other companies that Google picked up over the years, and the authors own suggestions on who Google should buy. A nice little read if you follow Google related news.

Here are some of my own ideas on who Google could buy:

• Vonage - There have been rumors about that Google wants to get into the VoIP market. Most rumors involve Google and Skype, which is why I didn’t suggest them.
• Opera Web Browser - Ever since Google registered the domain name, gbrowser.com there has been speculation that Google is building a web browser based off of Mozilla Firefox. Since Mozilla is a non-profit organization, buying that company is out of the question. Opera Software on the other hand makes since. Google is out to make money, and the Opera web browser would provide another mechanism for that. Opera also has a close partnership with Google to provide AdSense inside the free version of Opera, as well as a number of Google searches integrated into the browser.
• Invision Power Services - IPS has a lot to offer, as the company has several internet related products. The most popular product is the Invision Power Board. Again, Google is out to make money, and all of the IPS products have to be purchased. Integration of the IPS products into pro version of Blogger.com would provide the ultimate solution for a personal blog or web page. IPS is also in the process of creating a Content Management System (CMS) which also would be a nice addition.

This is just a few of my ideas. Sure there are a million different companies out there that Google could buy. Some make since, others don’t. There is just no way to tell who or what the big G will buy up next.

I’m highly considering getting VoIP service through Vonage if they ever offer the Knoxville area code (865). This of course would replace my local (and somewhat expensive) telephone service provided by Frontier Communication.

I’ve asked OCC members if anyone has experience with Vonage, if anyone else would like to contribute to the discussion, that thread can be found here.