GregLedet.net Adventures in networking, security, and other things

Greg, by Dec 09 – Jan 10 time frame, Vonage will release an update to this app that will allow incoming calls as well. So this means that you can make an iPod Touch into a “poor man” cell phone that can receive or make calls in an WiFi zone. The nice thing is that you have no cell phone contract to worry about. You can make your broken 2G phone into a home phone or a poor student can turn his/her iPod Touch into a wireless phone that works only in a WiFi zone but there are a lot of WiFi hotspots around university campuses.

Greg, there is an app called Imsomnia from Cydia that will keep WiFi as well as other functions such as IM alive when your screen goes to sleep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOI0HgH_9N4

My guess is the reason that Insomnia is on Cydia and not in the App Store is because Apple doesn't want that kind of functionality, not to mention the fact that your battery would be dead in a matter of about 4 hours.

I can see this conceivably working on the iPhone using push notification to be able to ring, but for an ipod, I can't figure out a way this would work. I'm sure Vonage has people a lot smarter than me working on it, but what I doubt VERY seriously is that AT&T is going to allow an app that works like this is supposed to work to make it out of the designer's computer. AT&T got Google Voice killed and I honestly can't believe that Vonage Mobile made it to the app store the way it did.

Maybe Mr. Lefar was confused, or maybe he was talking about capabilities that will be available on BlackBerry or Windows Mobile versions. I don't know. It's not unusual for apps that work on WM or BlackBerry to have similar, albeit cut down in functionality, versions for the iPhone and vice versa.

Ok Mike, let's see if I can narrow this down, but I'm going to do it in a new comment because this one is getting pretty close to the edge.

Greg – I had Google Voice way back when it was Grandcentral and before GC was bought by Google. In fact I was the first few ones with a Google Voice account because my GrandCentral account was transferred to Google Voice. Having said that, I am very familiar with GV capabilities and what Google intended to do with them. So if you google search around, you will find that Google itself said that it is a phone hosting service company or an “internet-powered bridge between calls made via traditional carriers” and not a phone company.

http://disparate.mobi/2009/09/28/att-takes-aim-…

In fact, GV is not even VOIP because it routes the calls via traditional POTS lines.

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wireless/7577…

And most of the features that you currently see on GV such as SimuRing (ring several phones at once) and virtual number already existed on Vonage Home Plan and Vonage Companion Pro a long time ago. In fact Vonage has a patent on virtual number and they ought to sue Google for patent infringement.

So what is Google aim with GV? It is primarily to manage the calls via Google servers such as Google can sell advertisements. But Google never intended to be a phone company because it is capital intensive, low profits, very boring because it will have to deal with customer care. Google businesses in advertisement and in Cloud Computing are much more lucrative and interesting.

That's why AT&T and Apple see Google as a threat because Google wants AT&T network and Apple phone to be just a dumb pipe so that Google can sell advertisement.

So in the long term, I see AT&T wanting to buy Vonage because it wants to merge the wireless and landline together as one. Currently AT&T only serves a few areas with landline because its U-Verse is slowly expanding but Vonage can be everywhere where broadband is available. But right now Vonage stock price is too low and the insiders would not want to sell at this price but probably a partnership will be formed and an acquisition will happen later. For Apple, anything that can help selling the iPhone would help. So Vonage being too small cannot be a threat to either AT&T and Apple.

Already you can see that Vonage is allowed to encroach more in the iPhone functionality without Apple raising an eyebrow. For instance when you make a call through the Vonage app in a 3G zone, the call first go through AT&T cellular before it gets routed to Vonage network where the call will be converted to VOIP before sending to its destination. In the near future, incoming call (called to people assigned Vonage phone number) will get routed from Vonage network to AT&T cellular network and then to your phone via the data channel. Since it goes through AT&T data channel, it will not cost any of your cell minutes. The current Vonage app also has a link to twitter so it is another form of messaging that encroaches on the iPhone functionality.

There is already at least one software called Pandora radio that is allowed to break AT&T rule. For instance when you listen to Pandora radio, your phone screen can go to a sleep mode but the radio still plays. Apple app rules are fuzzy and it can be bent where it will serve Apple interest.

Greg, you need to look at how the current Vonage App works to see that both AT&T and Apple have bent a lot of rules to allow it. And that's because it serves their interest.

It's not because somebody said on the internet that it must be right. Google will never become a phone company, period. Google may provide free calls in certain circumstances to sell ad space or to allow e-commerce. For instance when somebody clicks on a link inside an ad powered by Google, Google will connect the 2 parties for free to allow the sale. Google bought Gizmo5 mainly for the SIP technology and PSTN call termination. By the way, Google recently gave in by adopting SIP which is a phone company standard. A year ago, Google was still talking about its internet based phone technologies.

You are so confused about the ad concept. Sure Apple and AT&T allow free ads running in those little apps because they are mostly given for free in exchange of being able to run ads. Those apps are mostly written by little companies and little guys in their garage. That's not a threat to AT&T and Apple survival. But when a giant like Google walks in and wants to redirect all the calls to its servers to run its own ads, that's a different story.

You're contradicting yourself. First you agree finally with me that Google is not going to become a phone company (after showing an article that said to the contrary). Then you said that Google is going to offer similar services as AT&T and Vonage. What similar services? AT&T is a cellular phone company while Vonage is primary a land line phone company with a very competitive World Plan and is now offering to its World Plan customers the convenience of calling from a cell phone. So if Google is not going to be a phone company then how can it offer very similar services than AT&T and Vonage that are real phone companies? So it is not just because Google offers some free calls means that Google is a phone company offering the same services as AT&T and Vonage. Similarly if Barnes and Noble offers free WiFi, that does not mean that B&N wants to compete with T-Mobile or AT&T which also offer wifi hotspots (in fact the wifi at B&N is serviced by AT&T). Sure competition is everywhere and nobody can deny that but you are comparing apple and orange here.

With regard to Vonage, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint tried to shut it down years ago with those patent lawsuits without success. But today both Verizon and AT&T are out of the landline phone business except for where they have fiber lines (FIOS and U-Verse) and their main competitors are the cable companies and not Vonage. So it is a marriage of convenience that they may partner with Vonage to bundle the landline and cellular in their offering. Vonage can do the landline phone cheaper than anybody else including Skype that makes people call from a PC, because Vonage employees are not unionized and somehow Vonage figured out how to do VOIP with quality when others failed (as witnessed by AT&T shutting down its CallVantage and Verizon its Voicewing) .

Nobody knows for sure if there will be a partnership because we are all speculating here until it happens. But there are obvious signs that something is going on because Vonage is allowed to do more with AT&T network and Apple iPhone than Google is allowed to do. You obviously know that when you make a call from the Vonage app that your call has to go from AT&T cellular network to Vonage network but you only dial the number you want to call directly in one step. How does that work without some cooperation from AT&T? Whereas if you call through Google Voice, first you have to call the Google voice phone number you are assigned to, then enter a pin number, and then dial the number you want to call. Why is that? Why a technological advanced company like Google cannot make its phone dialing working like Vonage? Soon, Vonage will offer incoming calls from its app, so people can call the Vonage number the customer has been assigned to and then the call will go from Vonage network to AT&T network to your cell phone, all in a seamless and transparent manner. How can that happen?

You are simply a stubborn guy who simply does not want to see facts outside of your preconditioned mindset. Sure I am a VG investor but only after I studied the facts and saw what is coming. This is your blog and I should not trash it and so I rest my case after this post. You believe what you want to believe and I do with mine. Good luck.

You're contradicting yourself. First you agree finally with me that Google is not going to become a phone company (after showing an article that said to the contrary). Then you said that Google is going to offer similar services as AT&T and Vonage. What similar services? AT&T is a cellular phone company while Vonage is primary a land line phone company with a very competitive World Plan and is now offering to its World Plan customers the convenience of calling from a cell phone. So if Google is not going to be a phone company then how can it offer very similar services than AT&T and Vonage that are real phone companies? So it is not just because Google offers some free calls means that Google is a phone company offering the same services as AT&T and Vonage. Similarly if Barnes and Noble offers free WiFi, that does not mean that B&N wants to compete with T-Mobile or AT&T which also offer wifi hotspots (in fact the wifi at B&N is serviced by AT&T). Sure competition is everywhere and nobody can deny that but you are comparing apple and orange here.

With regard to Vonage, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint tried to shut it down years ago with those patent lawsuits without success. But today both Verizon and AT&T are out of the landline phone business except for where they have fiber lines (FIOS and U-Verse) and their main competitors are the cable companies and not Vonage. So it is a marriage of convenience that they may partner with Vonage to bundle the landline and cellular in their offering. Vonage can do the landline phone cheaper than anybody else including Skype that makes people call from a PC, because Vonage employees are not unionized and somehow Vonage figured out how to do VOIP with quality when others failed (as witnessed by AT&T shutting down its CallVantage and Verizon its Voicewing) .

Nobody knows for sure if there will be a partnership because we are all speculating here until it happens. But there are obvious signs that something is going on because Vonage is allowed to do more with AT&T network and Apple iPhone than Google is allowed to do. You obviously know that when you make a call from the Vonage app that your call has to go from AT&T cellular network to Vonage network but you only dial the number you want to call directly in one step. How does that work without some cooperation from AT&T? Whereas if you call through Google Voice, first you have to call the Google voice phone number you are assigned to, then enter a pin number, and then dial the number you want to call. Why is that? Why a technological advanced company like Google cannot make its phone dialing working like Vonage? Soon, Vonage will offer incoming calls from its app, so people can call the Vonage number the customer has been assigned to and then the call will go from Vonage network to AT&T network to your cell phone, all in a seamless and transparent manner. How can that happen?

You are simply a stubborn guy who simply does not want to see facts outside of your preconditioned mindset. Sure I am a VG investor but only after I studied the facts and saw what is coming. This is your blog and I should not trash it and so I rest my case after this post. You believe what you want to believe and I do with mine. Good luck.

I'm not saying that Google is going to become a phone company. What I'm saying is that Google will soon offer the similar services as AT&T and Vonage. I think you are so blinded by the fact that you are a VG stock holder that you won't realize that there's a “real world” that Vonage has to play in and that companies like AT&T and Apple aren't just going to bend over and let Vonage do what they want because they don't see them as competition.

I'm glad you rest your case. To be honest, I'm tired of arguing about it. What started this all off was you saying that Vonage was coming out with an app with a certain time frame that would allow incoming calls. You then said that you got that word from the CEO himself. When I pointed how just how wrong you were, you continue to go on and on, making very little sense, about why this happened and why that is going to happen. You have yet to make a viable point.

Just because a company offers phone services doesn't mean they are a phone company. Is Comcast a phone company? They offer phone services, but they are a cable company, not a phone company. If your restaurant serves wine with dinner, does that make it a bar? Is AT&T a television company? They offer television service… Google is a search company that makes their profits from ads. They offer TONS of services, phone soon to be one of them, but they will always be a search company.

Now, if Vonage comes out with this app that started this entire conversation, and does so with the blessing of AT&T, come back and I will write and entire article just on how wrong I was. But until then leave the technical stuff to tech guys and I'll leave the investing to the investors.