Today brought some great news for Vonage and its shareholders. Verizon (News - Alert) and Vonage have settled the ongoing patent dispute for a maximum of $120 million. The company saw its stock close at $1.53 at the end of the day’s trading, down 4.38%. This news caused the stock to jump in after-hours a total of $1.12 or 73.20% (as of 6:00 pm EST). Certainly this is a staggering jump on a percentage gain.

 

This bit of positive news may or may not be the start of some positive momentum for this poster-child for pure-play consumer VoIP.

 

What happens next is hard to guess, but there is a patent dispute with AT&T (News - Alert) which also needs to be dealt with.

 

The company is obviously more of a legal play than a communications/tech play and I wonder if from a financial perspective it is even fair to be looking at Vonage (News - Alert) as a VoIP company. After all, when the fate of the company rests more on jurors and judges than customers, should this company set the pace for consumer VoIP?

 

For the sake of customers, shareholders and Vonage employees, I hope all legal issues get cleared up soon and the company can get back to focusing on attracting and retaining customers and not on winning patent disputes.

 

On that note, I should mention — I just switched to cable VoIP and while it works fine, I can’t believe how much more functionality Vonage had years ago than Cablevision has today. Vonage should spend some of their marketing dollars on explaining how many benefits and value-added services they have and not focus so much on price.

 

Vonage, you are the Lexus or Mercedes of VoIP… Why do your ads make me think of Chevy?

 

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