Vonage to Pay $120 Million to Verizon
Added on 2007-11-19 06:05:00
by Tanya Palta
 Vonage Holdings Corp has been ordered to pay $120 million to Verizon Communications Inc. after a U.S. appeals court refused to reconsider the case.Vonage had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to review its ruling but they denied the request.
“We were not surprised, but disappointed that the court denied our request for a rehearing of the case,'' Vonage spokesman Charlie Sahner said in an e-mailed statement. ``We are pleased to continue putting litigation behind us.''
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AT&T court ruling lets you sue your carrier
Added on 2007-07-16 12:38:00
by Mark Brezinski
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 Washington State Supreme Court ruled against AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless) saying arbitration clauses in cell phone contracts violate the Consumer Protection Act. Typically arbitration agreements are in the fine print of any cellphone contract and take away the customer's right to create class action lawsuits. Originally, Cingular customers were suing over a roaming charge dispute. When the class-action suit was filed, Cingular tried to block it, citing their arbitration clause.
According to the case, each individual consumer was being overcharged by anywhere from a buck to $40. Now, individually this is utterly insignificant and wouldn't be worth bringing to court, but on the whole, Cingular Wireless overcharged the public by quite a large margin. This situation is a textbook reason why class-action lawsuits exist: to protect the public from corporate nickel-&-dime theft.
Even though the suit itself is still unresolved, this ruling will undoubtedly be a watershed case for business ethics; just because the clause was standard doesn't mean it was ethical. As Cingular was bought out after this suit had been filed, we were left wondering if AT&T had the foresight to factor this PR nightmare into the dealmaking process. Regardless, looks like AT&T married itself to the problem, and now they might have to pay up.
[Via Cellular-news]
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New EV-DO phone models coming to the US could be halted
Added on 2007-06-08 09:29:00
by Randall Bennett
 Potential 3G buyers beware, the International Trade Commission imposed a ban on all Qualcomm-powered phones and if President Bush signs it, we could see a shortage of 3G handsets. Why? Apparently chipset manufacturers Broadcom and Qualcomm have been bickering over a patent that Broadcom claims Qualcomm is infringing.
The main problem for US consumers would be a lack of EV-DO, as Qualcomm is the primary manufacturer (Broadcom only makes UMTS / HSDPA solutions.)
We're sure this ruling is just a bump on the road to more argument, as Qualcomm is seeking both an injunction and a presidential veto on the ban. If the ban were to go through, it would mean any handset with EV-DO couldn't be imported into the United States, and we're pretty sure Verizon, Sprint and any MVNO's using EV-DO handsets will be a tad ticked (except Amp'd) and rally to Qualcomm's defense. The CTIA has already come out with a statement against the ban, saying, "today's decision by the International Trade Commission will cause enormous undue harm to tens of millions of American wireless consumers, and urges President Bush to veto the ITC importation ban."
Blech. No matter who is truly right, US consumers probably will be the last party thought of. Yuck.
UPDATE: Just to clarify, the ruling only applies to new models that will be released, and not to models being currently imported. The shortage won't be of handsets currently gracing our shores, but more of a clamp on future models integrating the chips.
[Via EngadgetMobile]
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