Bloggers Jon Arnold and Daniel Berninger want to know why Verizon went after Vonage on the patent front. Why not some other company? The answer is that the dominant telcos want some competition, but not effective competition. The reason is simple enough. It is quite beneficial to show regulators that there is effective competition in their markets. But what happens is that there's a threshold. Below a certain level of success, we leave you alone. Cross the line, and we have to deal with you.
That's why some competitive local exchange carriers actually were encouraged to take share away from certain large tier one incumbent telcos. Helped, actually. All to demonstrate that there is effective competition in the market. Not every CLEC got that sort of material help. And not every CLEC found itself so favored once the legislative and regulatory battles requiring proof of effective competition drew to an end.
Vonage gets attacked because it frankly doesn't help to attack SunRocket or Packet8. Vonage is the one company that crossed the threshold, as all the leading cable companies have done. And that is my take on "why Vonage?".
1 comment:
Thanks Gary - I appreciate your picking up on my post. Sounds like we agree about "why" here, and I think that's the right answer. Just too bad the regulators don't feel that way.
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