Telecom vet Lefar takes over at Vonage

Telecom industry veteran Marc Lefar, who has worked primarily in the wireless market for both Verizon Wireless and AT&T, among others, has been named CEO of VoIP service provider Vonage, replacing Jeffrey Citron. Lefar was the chief marketing officer of AT&T's Cingular Wireless when that company successfully reduced customer churn, and as Light Reading points out, that is experience much in need at Vonage, which has churn of more than 3 percent.

Vonage needs to press hard from a marketing perspective to get customers to think of it as a multi-play service provider (the company now has a deal to resell Covad Communications DSL service). The VoIP business also continues to be challenging as cable TV companies like Comcast continue to make progress with their own voice services, and telcos push themselves in the direction of Web 2.0-related voice applications and mash-ups.

For more:
- read this story [1] at Light Reading

Related articles:
Vonage announced in May it will re-sell DSL from Covad. Vonage report [2]
Vonage has faced scrutiny over its ability to pay down debt. Vonage report [3]