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July 19, 2007
Corpses or Collaboration? SunRocket v. Sprint/Clearwire
I'm going through my mental "Hmm, what should I put in the FOCUS e-newsletter?" prep today and find myself torn between discussing the demise of SunRocket vs. the collaboration between Sprint and Clearwire.
SunRocket hadn't even locked its doors before Vonage sent out a press release saying they had a "deal" for abandoned SunRocket customers, and Vonage's offer was quickly followed by ViaTalk and at least two or three other companies. One service provider sent out a "We'll help you, wayward customer" release today - 4 days after SunRocket had closed its doors.
Packet8 has laid claim to being the "official" something or another for SunRocket users; how much that will be worth is unknown given the other vultures, er companies circling around trying to pluck off the 200,000 or so people that SunRocket left high and dry.
ViaTalk claimed they had already "successfully" switched over "thousands" of SunRocket users within a 48 hour hour period, according to their their press release. Also in the release, the CEO says that "he has been in regular contact with executives throughout the VoIP industry" to make sure former SunRocket customers are treated fairly.
Hmm. Fairly?
Of course, this begs the question of why anyone who was once burned by SunRocket's (really dirt cheap) VoIP service would take a chance on signing up with another VoIP-only company rather than a cable company or one of the flat-rate all-you-can eat plans from the local phone company.
Consider that SunRocket was credited with being the second-biggest independent (i.e. not infrastructure bound) VoIP provider at 200,000 subs, Vonage being number #1 at 2M or so subs pre-Verizon lawsuits.
Take the 200,000, knock off embittered/jaded users who will "come home" to their own phone companies and/or give cable VoIP a go, then divide the unknown rest among 5-7 others...
It's a mess, no matter how you slice it.
Posted by dmohney at July 19, 2007 05:53 PM