Besieged independent VoIP provider Vonage has settled its patent lawsuit with Verizon, agreeing to pay a total of $120 million to end the protracted legal battle and to eliminate the uncertainty hanging over its head. Vonage will pay out an additional $32 million on top of $88 million it has held in escrow ever since a jury awarded Verizon $58 million in damages plus ongoing royalties last spring.
That's two down and one to go for Vonage. The VoIP provider earlier this month settled another patent infringement lawsuit, this one brought about by Sprint-Nextel, paying $80 million to that telco.
Unfortunately, less than two weeks later, AT&T slapped a patent infringement suit on Vonage. (Who else is left to grab a piece of the easy-pickings? Qwest? Deutsche Telekom?)
Although Vonage has cleared away a lot of underbrush with the two settlements to date, in particularly clearing away the prospect of being nicked to death by ongoing royalty payments, the hardest challenge lies ahead: actually getting customers to buy Vonage's voice service in the face of aggressive triple-play bundle offers marketed by telcos and cable operators.
Cynthia Brumfield at 5:32 PM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
