[asterisk-biz] Vonage 877

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On 5/22/07, Paul <ast2005 at 9ux.com> wrote:
> I think that is going way too far. People can spend a lot of time and
> money advertising a tollfree number. The FCC should not allow renting or
> leasing of tollfrees without some kind of "large print" disclosure. I
> can fully understand temporary needs like a targeted TV ad campaign
> where the call center provides the DID. Otherwise, tollfrees should not
> be held captive.
>

the same argument can be said for a non-tollfree.  However vonage is
not a phone company, and I do not encourage anyone to go forth and
insist that ITSPs be treated as carriers since that will cause more
legal headaches, and regulatory nightmares (do you really want to fall
into the rules of 50 states, a few territories, federal rules, etc?).

Vonage is the customer of the phone company, the number is theirs.
The same argument could be made that if you use a payphone all the
time that you should be able to own the number assigned to it simply
because of 'squatters rights'.  I personally disagree.

I use the woud 'you' in a generic sense, not implying anyone specific.

If you enter into a contract, you agree to it, vonage doesnt hide the
fact that porting out of their service is at their discretion and that
you may not be able to do it.  If you ignored that contract and are
stuck now, that is not vonages fault, nor is it the FCCs duty to
relieve you from your contractual obligations.

If you dont understand what you are doing when you enter into an
agreement, especially in a business contract, your boss should rethink
his decision to allow you to make decisions on the companies behalf.
If you are the boss, you should rethink the policy of deciding for
yourself without reading or undertanding what you read, and hire
someone who is competent to assess the risks of the agreement.

I dont really see anything shady here, I have brought this up with
vonage specifically in the past on this list, and vonage doesnt hide
their TOS.  The signup process makes you agree to the TOS, clicking
'next' without reading is not vonages fault.  Once you start blaming
companies for having contracts you really errode the power of a
contract to force things like payment for goods/services delivered,
etc and ultimately it will cause far more problems than it will ever
fix.

I do have a problem with vonage advertising $25/mo service when its
really much more after taxes and fees, but that is a different issue
:)
-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the VoIP provider that pays you!