Vonage unveils new application

Look up the PowerRating of VG and see how it has performed over the past week as well as the current proprietary PowerRating.

HOLMDEL, Oct 05, 2009 (Asbury Park Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- VG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Internet telephone company Vonage Holdings Corp. unveiled an application for the iPhone and BlackBerry on Monday, aiming it at users who make international calls.

The free downloadable application for the iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones gives users the ability to make international calls to more than 200 countries. Holmdel-based Vonage says the service saves customers more than 50 percent on calls to dozens of countries versus rates charged by other wireless carriers.

"Our new mobile app is an important step in establishing Vonage as a software technology company that enables high-quality voice and messaging across any device in any location, providing greater value over any broadband network," said Marc LeFar, president and chief executive officer at Vonage.

The application, called Vonage Mobile, is not an extension of Vonage's Internet telephone service, which allows for unlimited calling via your home's high-speed Internet lines.

Rather, users pay for the amount of minutes they use.

Vonage is focusing on international calls, a growth segment in the long-distance market, said Mike Tempora, senior vice president of product management. More than 12 million households in the United States are either first-generation or have English as a second language, Tempora said.

"That is a growing population," Tempora said. "If you look at FCC calling statistics, that is one of the only markets that is growing in terms of minute call volume."

The calls are placed as local wireless calls, using up minutes on the cell phone plan, although the iPhone will use Wi-Fi instead if that's available. (That works as well on the iPhone's sibling, the iPod Touch, which goes online only with Wi-Fi.) The BlackBerry only uses the cellular network. Vonage then carries the calls to their overseas destination.

As an example of its prices, Vonage will carry a call to Colombia for 5 cents per minute. AT&T charges $2.19 per minute, or 17 cents per minute if the caller has signed up for a $3.99-per-month international calling plan.

The company said it will enhance the application during the fourth quarter to include its Vonage World plan, a home service introduced in August, that gives unlimited international calls for a flat fee.

The fact that the Vonage app for the iPhone can use the cellular voice channel is unusual. Several other voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch can already place calls over Wi-Fi. But Google Inc.'s Voice application, which is designed to use the cellular network, has not been approved.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

To see more of the Asbury Park Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.app.com Copyright (c) 2009, Asbury Park Press, N.J. Distributed by
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

More News:   Market Updates | Stock Alerts | All Trading News | Stock Index