Vonage IPO and SPIT

SPIT is Spam over IP Telephony.

Yesterday I got an email from Vonage offering me a piece of their IPO because I’m a long-term customer.  I was fine with getting that mail although I don’t intend to take advantage of the offer for reasons I’ve posted here.

Today I got voicemail from Vonage offering the same thing.  I am NOT fine with getting this voicemail.  It makes me worry that Vonage will start selling the right to put voicemail in my account.  It makes me realize that VoIP CAN even more easily be used for junk calls than the legacy phone system.  I don’t want a VoIP provider which isn’t sensitive to this danger.  I don’t want to buy stock in a provider which doesn’t understand what an abuse SPIT is.

Perhaps I’m oversensitive; Mary thinks this was sort of cool.  I get my voicemail through email.  Vonage didn’t actually make my phone ring, just deposited the voice message in my voicemail box.

BTW, Vonage has extended “free” (unmetered) calling on its $24.99 US residential plan to include calls to landlines in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy and Spain.  These calls were only pennies a minute previously but Mary immediately tried to call daughter Kate in London.  She got busy circuits for four hours yesterday but did get through today.  It’s tricky to estimate demand for a new unmetered service.  Hopefully just a teething problem.