Is Vonage (VG) Going Wifi?
Engadget writes that Vonage (VG) may be teaming up with Earthlink (ELNK) to offer a WiFi-enabled phone that can allow VoIP calls but can switch to a cellular signal if the WiFi signal is not available. Although the product may…
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Engadget writes that Vonage (VG) may be teaming up with Earthlink (ELNK) to offer a WiFi-enabled phone that can allow VoIP calls but can switch to a cellular signal if the WiFi signal is not available.
Although the product may be the offering of two weak companies, there may well be a market for inexpensive handset service, and, the program might help get the two companies out of the mud. Earthink’s stock traded at close to $12 a year ago. Now, it is just above $7. Its transition from being an ISP to a company that builds out WiFi has been a tough one. Cities have been slow to approve widely distributed WiFi.
Vonage’s problems have been worse. The stock has dropped from $17.25 to $5.48. Despite growing revenue and smaller losses, Wall St. is concerned that the company cannot compete with cable companies that bundle VoIP service with broadband and TV.
Neither company has a good way out, but offering a joint product may be a beginning.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.