The creditors of defunct VoIP service provider SunRocket are trying to reach a deal with another service provider to find a new home for SunRocket's 200,000 or so existing customers. Meanwhile, apart from that effort, telcos ranging from VoIP pioneers like Vonage to former Bell companies like AT&T are busily pitching the left-behind customers themselves.
So far, SunRocket is offering precious little info about what went wrong, as well as whether or not customers who already paid the $199/year flat service fee so heavily promoted by SunRocket will get any money back. It's possible SunRocket was giving away too much in the way of service capabilities for a low price, but the broader lessons from its demise may be that the VoIP business is no longer one for one-trick ponies, and that the overall window of opportunity is closing as old-school telcos like AT&T and Verizon push further into the market and muscle up against the newbies--whether by legal or purely competitive means.
For more on the SunRocket saga:
- read this follow-up from the Wall Street Journal (Sub. req.)