Vonage continues to be trail blazer

Vonage America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corp, is a leading player in the VoIP marketplace with over a million subscribers. The company was founded in January 2001, and provides VoIP phone services to subscribers in the US and Canada. It has more than 1 million active lines and carries more than 35 millions calls per week.

One of the first companies to start a VoIP-based phone service Vonage has grown rapidly. It has been able to penetrate markets that were quite suspicious of VoIP services initially. In fact, it will not be wrong to say that Vonage with its smart promotions and aggressive marketing created interest in VoIP phone services in the US. The Vonage jingle is still hummed by most Vonage and non-Vonage users.

Some of the value added features that Vonage provides to its subscribers are: call-waiting caller id, call waiting disable function, distinctive ringing, repeat dialing, return dial and three-way calling, call blocking, call filtering, sequential ringing, secondary virtual phone number, additional service lines, toll-free numbers and web-based management.

The Vonage phone is easy to operate for anyone who has a broadband connection. The phone cable and the broadband cable are plugged into a Cisco 186 box. Once this is done the customer can use the Vonage phone to make and receive calls.

The company offers a choice of two business and two residential plans to its subscribers. The Residential Basic Plan provides 500 minutes of local and long distance calling throughout the US and Canada while the Residential Premium Unlimited Plan provides for unlimited calling. These calls can be made to all destinations in the United States and Canada.

The business plans are even more attractive. The Small Business Basic Plan provides for 1500 minutes of calling throughout the US and Canada with a free dedicated fax line. The Small Business Unlimited Plan, as the name suggests, provides unlimited calling throughout the US and Canada, with a free dedicated fax line.

Vonage may be facing much competition now from the new entrants but it still continues to grow at a tearing pace.