In 1999, years before Vonage was a company, Net2phone had an agreement with Komodo Technology to use their Komodo Fone as a broadband telephony/VoIP access device. You could make outbound calls but not receive inbound calls with this combination of hardware and service.
Agreement may be a strong word as TMC Labs had one of these Net2phone enabled Komodophones and I am not aware of anyone else having access to it. Here is the TMC Labs review of the Komodo Fone 300. We were sent a few devices and as I recall the one I received was a prototype.
This package did everything Vonage does except for the ability to have a local phone number. Somehow Net2phone didnt capitalize on what was a half-decade head start. In fact a few years ago my Komodophone which became the Cisco ATA-186 through an acquisition broke and there was no replacement technology available. The Cisco device no longer worked with Net2phone service. This is why I tried Vonage out.
I was just reading Net2Phone Expands Network Reach on TMCnet and it seems that Net2phone is positioned to be a strong Vonage competitor as they have a slew of worldwide telephone numbers now available to them. Net2phone was the first company to market Internet telephony to the masses and had a product called Yap Phone in CompUSA meaning they were one of the first companies with a VoIP product in the retail space. They stopped marketing heavily a few years back. They are now in a position to be a player once again. It will be tough to keep up with the AT&T and Vonage marketing machines and winning a features war will be difficult since AT&T is on fire launching new features like crazy.
The market however is huge if you consider every person in the world could potentially have a VoIP phone so there is plenty of opportunity for everyone. Good luck Net2phone, if you want me to give your service a try, please drop me a line or just set up an appointment at our Internet Telephony show in Miami.
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