Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Vonage Holdings

Vonage Now Extending Cheap International Calling To Mobile Devices

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 20:06:15 +0000

Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG) has made extended international unlimited calling plans to mobile devices. The new service, Vonage Extensions, extends their home voice calling service to any cellphone. Customers who pay $25.99 for Vonage World will be able to make an unlimited number of calls to landline phones in over 60 countries and cellphones in 10 countries.

“About 50 percent of the international calls from the U.S. are made from a mobile phone,” stated Vonage SVP of product management Mike Tempora. “Most people use a calling card or pay high rates from a wireless carrier. So we felt this was a great opportunity to extend our service to these customers.”

Vonage Extensions allows subscribers to extend their service to an additional phone number for free. Eventually Vonage will allow people to add more phone lines to their Extensions program for a fee.

Vonage’s current technology uses VoIP. However the Extension service operates similar to a calling card service, which routes the phone calls over the carrier’s voice network. Calls that are made through the Extensions service are counted as part of the cell phone user’s domestic minutes.

What gives Vonage an advantage in this case is that Extensions works on any phone. You don’t need a smartphone or an advanced phone to use the service.
Existing Vonage customers can sign up for Extensions now.

[CNET]

AT&T Now Allowing VoIP Applications To Run On The iPhone

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:20:39 +0000

AT&T has changed their mind about disallowing iPhone VoIP applications. Now VoIP applications will be able to run on AT&T’s 3G network. This includes Vonage and Skype. Before Skype and Vonage were only allowed to operate on WiFi hotspots. This limits where you can use the applications.

One of the reasons why AT&T may have decided to let down their guard is because the FCC is investigating why Google Voice has been rejected multiple times. Will this make it more likely for Google Voice to be approved? Nope.

Apple did not reject Google Voice for VoIP reasons, but because it “appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.”

Will AT&T end up paying less? Perhaps the telecommunications company will require customers to have minimum contracts to make sure that they don’t lose too much money from allowing VoIP services.

Vonage iPhone Application Approved, But You Can’t Download It Yet

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:01:12 +0000

Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE:VG) sent out a press release that Apple has approved their mobile application, but nobody can download it yet because they’re still beta testing. Availability is not yet known. Vonage also recently announced the launch of Vonage World with an unlimited calling plan.

It is assumed that the Vonage iPhone application will allow you to make and receive calls using your Vonage phone number. It is uncertain whether the application will work on 3G or not.

Why did Vonage send out a press release?
Perhaps it is because Google Voice had a struggle to make it through the App Store acceptance process. Nowadays making it through the process within a respectable amount of time is a personal victory.