Hosted VoIP

Vonage (News - Alert) is reportedly planning to add VoIP/cellular hybrid telephones to its offering. The move could fuel the company’s efforts of moving VoIP in the wireless direction.

Vonage’s wireless service plans began last month when the company announced that it had joined forces with EarthLink to offer customers WiFi Internet access in select cities throughout the U.S. The companies did so by inking a new, three-year contract. The contract calls for Vonage to buy Internet access on a wholesale basis from EarthLink in all cities where the company will build, own and operate municipal wireless networks. Vonage agreed to resell this WiFi Internet service to its consumers under the Vonage brand. EarthLink has since then signed a number of citywide WiFi (News - Alert) hotspot deployments in Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia; Anaheim, Milpitas and New Orleans.

According to a Business Week news report, analysts are predicting that the VoIP provider will also soon launch a wireless service under its own brand, as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) by being a reseller of another carrier’s service, but with its own content.

If Vonage is indeed taking the MVNO route, this rather lavishly expensive move will probably make many industry insiders scratch their heads. This, judging by the legal troubles the company is currently facing over technology patents and the subscriber slump it reported the quarter and year ending December 31, 2006.

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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.