Vonage is suing the phone giant AT&T because it says its new VoIP service launched this week confuses customers. Long distance carriers such as AT&T have the most to lose from Internet telephony, which is why they're offering similar services. AT&T has said it wants to sign a million subscribers to its $39 a month a service by the end of next year.

The only trouble, says Vonage, is that AT&T's name of CallVantage is too similar to its own, and has filed suit in a New Jersey court. AT&T is using even more similar domain names: callvantage.com looks very much like its own callvonage.com.

When it declared its intentions in December, AT&T vowed to launch VoIP in a hundred consumer markets. Win or lose, the publicity should help increase Vonage's name recognition in its David against Goliath battle against the incumbent telcos. ®

Related Stories

The Death Star storms into consumer Net phones (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/34477.html)
IP telephony and Wi-Fi must tie the knot (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36550.html)
Level 3 launches residential VoIP (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36647.html)
VoIP will be US broadband killer app (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/35636.html)

Do-Not-Call site has AT&T web bug (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/33301.html)
AT&T lets phone fraud victims off the hook (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/31439.html)