My Plea to Vonage

Business week is reporting that Vonage will begin selling dual mode GSM/Wifi phones in either the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year. This could be a really exciting offering from a company that many insiders feel is on the decline. It also could be a disaster that facilitates an even steeper decline for them. As a very loyal customer of theirs I really want them to succeed. My fear is that they will make the same mistake that was made with their original WiFi offering. Which was to bundle an “early adopter” technology with what appears to be a late nineties cell phone.

I am not ragging on the UTStarcom F-1000 though; it is a very solid WiFi phone. I just think that it was rather fool hardy to bundle a Voice over WiFi service with a phone that looks like that. One of the great things about being an early adopter is showing off your gadgets to friends/colleagues/family. You get to show people all of the really cool functions that you will probably never use and possibly even get to hear how great you are for having such a device. Instead you get a conversation that goes like this:

  • Friend – “Don’t you think its time to buy a new cell phone?”
  • Early Adopter – “Oh, this is not a cell phone. It make VoIP calls over my WiFi connection. This is cutting edge technology.”
  • Friend – “Really? It looks the phone my Dad clipped to his belt in 1998. Does it do anything besides make VoIP calls?”
  • Early Adopter – Puts head down in shame… “no”

My plea to Vonage is this; either release the service on cutting edge dual mode phones or modify some really old school cell phones to use the service. People seem to love anything “old school” and are more than willing to pay big bucks for an Original Nintendo or First Edition Air Jordans. How about a Motorola Dynatac 8000x that has been retrofitted with a new screen and a camera? You can even have Zack Morris be your new spokesman:

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“Timeout! Are you paying too much on your cell phone bills?”