The unexpected and unannounced closure of a Virginia-based voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone company left thousands of area clients without phone service last week.
When Internet phone carrier SunRocket closed its doors Monday, terminating its service, all clients heard when they called was we are no longer taking customer service or sales calls. Goodbye.
Now, clients’ money and phone numbers hang in limbo.
The national media instantly swarmed on SunRocket, the country’s second-largest VoIP company, behind Vonage Holdings, upon news of the closing. And scores of clients who had spent $199 on a year’s service contract began shopping around for new phone service.
Calls have been non-stop to Menands-based VoIP company, Voiceral. They, along with a slew of competitors, are vying for the business of more than 200,000 disenfranchised SunRocket Internet phone clients nationwide.
To land former SunRocket clients, Voiceral is offering three months of free service, no activation fees and free overnight shipping of VoIP device.
`It looks like they basically ran out of money. My guess is that there are about 2,000 SunRocket customers in the area. They’re done. These people are literally without service,` said Voiceral chief executive officer and company co-founder, David Conboy.
Attempts to contact SunRocket were unsuccessful.
Conboy said the company has been the talk of the industry for a while now.
SunRocket was one of the service’s lowest cost providers.
According to Conboy, SunRocket had allegedly been in negotiations with several potential buyers for a while. The company closed shop after final negotiations with a potential buyer failed, said Conboy. An Associated Press story stated the company headquarters in Tyson’s Corner, Va., closed Monday, July 16. A cardboard sign hung on the door read `Out of Business.`
Voiceral entered the Internet phone business in November 2005. It’s a business riddled with thin profit margins and highly competitive pricing, said Conboy. The company serves clients in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New Jersey.
Conboy and Voiceral executives expected that their company see a profit after its first seven years. To keep costs to a minimal the company pulled advertising and instead relied on word of mouth. A little more than two months ago, the company broke even.
With SunRocket’s closing, the VoIP business has changed overnight, he said.
The market’s whole emphasis has been to have the best prices available, now it’s more than that. Now it is who is going to be around and who is dependable, Conboy said.
`Price all of the sudden is not the issue,` he said.
Voiceral has thrown its hat in the ring with the likes of large VoIP providers Packet 8 and TeleBlend`who both approached Sherwood Partners of California, the company liquidating SunRocket’s assets`to get at the 200,000 to 220,000 disenfranchised customers, said Sherwood founder Martin Pichinson.
Sherwood specializes in liquidating the assets of defunct dot-com and tele-communication companies.
`Sherwood expects to enter into agreements with other service providers to transition the customers of SunRocket to such providers,` read a company statement.
Pichinson’s phone, like Voiceral’s has been ringing off the hook as SunRocket customers look to recoup their losses and VoIP companies look to gain their business.
`We are telling them the company is out of business,` he said.
As far as getting new phone service, that is between clients and VoIP providers, Pichinson said.
For now, SunRocket clients have turned to one another, offering advice about replacement companies and listing alternative plans. Among many of the lists, Voiceral, nestled in Menands, is popping up.
“