Vonage and Comcast working to improve VoIP call quality

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July 15th, 2008 - Posted by Joe

Vonage and Comcast, the nation's largest consumer VoIP provider and second largest Internet service provider respectively, announced plans last week to collaborate on improvements to call quality for subscribers of both services. Some subscribers and outside observers believe that Comcast has previously taken proactive measures to interfere with the call quality of Vonage customers that also use a Comcast broadband connection.

Comcast has previously taken steps to "throttle", or limit the total amount of bandwidth available to, subscriber accounts that used a disproportionately high amount of the company's Internet access resources. VoIP services are relatively bandwidth intensive, so it is very possible that Vonage subscribers that also used Comcast could have had their access "throttled". This would have surely negatively impacted the call quality of these Vonage subscribers.

Comcast also operates an Internet telephone service that competes directly with Vonage. This has fueled further speculation that Comcast may have taken measures to artificially manufacture a negative user experience for Vonage subscribers on their broadband Internet network.

This partnership is likely an attempt by Comcast to quiet those anti-competitive rumors. Comcast CTO Tony Werner said:

"This collaboration with Vonage, and our outreach to many key participants in the Internet community, demonstrate that we are committed to provide network management solutions that benefit consumers and competition".

We don't believe that Comcast was engaging in any proactive attempts to interrupt Vonage service for competitive reasons. The reality is that those Comcast subscribers that use large amounts of cable Internet bandwidth are costly to the company and are likely the prime motivating factor in any throttling that occurs. No matter what the motivation, this partnership is great for both Comcast subscribers that currently use Vonage's consumer VoIP service or that may do so in the future since it means that consumers will have access to the best possible call quality.

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