[Asterisk-Users] Sprint Nextel sueing over VoIP patents

[Gleim, Jason]

I wouldn't think anyone would consider Sprint a dying company. They just
acquired Nextel so they've got money to spend.

Maybe as an ILEC (which they are here in Ohio) they are viewing Vonage
and Voiceglo as a force that needs to be stopped to prevent further
eroding of their POTS network. I know that I cost SBC money when I
dropped them for Vonage. They aren't getting the $$ for that line
installed to my home anymore. (Which makes me downright giddy when I
think about it.) Imagine if my whole neighborhood switched after SBC had
built-out facilities... that would cost SBC a lot of money. They put
those POTS lines in counting on them being active and producing income
for a long time. Even if service is provided by a CLEC, the line makes
money for the ILEC. But if the line is switched off before the payoff
horizon, they lose money.

Vonage just announced, with much fanfare, that they had hit 1 million
lines. In the big scheme that isn't a lot, but that is still 1 million
POTS lines that have been abandoned and are costing someone money. Maybe
Sprint sees this as an opportunity to leverage their patents to stem the
flow of people that are switching? It would explain the timing and why,
if the patents have been around for 2, 3, or 4 years, that they are just
now trying to enforce them.

The lawsuit may be frivolous... Or maybe they are throwing the suit at
Vonage & Voiceglo thinking it may distract them enough to break some of
their momentum... Or maybe Sprint has something, and if they get lucky,
it goes their way and tosses the entire thing in the blender? Who knows?
But I can't believe Sprint would pull a SCO and sue just to impress the
investors. They don't really need to.

Jason

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Dave
Cotton
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 4:57 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Sprint Nextel sueing over VoIP patents

On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 01:34 -0700, John Todd wrote:

> To answer my own question: no, it doesn't seem like there is anything 
> Asterisk-specific in the suit.  It seems that Sprint is claiming that 
> they own the rights to pretty much any VoIP technology.  Carry on, 
> everyone; this will be thrown out with the rest of the garbage after 
> Vonage and others spend huge amounts of time and effort staving off 
> the frivolity lawyers.  <sigh>
> 

Is this just another dying company, like SCO, trying to give the
impression it's still got something for investors. In SCO's case it
appears nothing more than a pump and dump exercise.


-- 
Dave Cotton <dcotton at linuxautrement.com>

_______________________________________________
--Bandwidth and Colocation sponsored by Easynews.com --

Asterisk-Users mailing list
Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com
http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users