Vonage & Comcast Work On Standards (VG, CMCSA, CMCSK)

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) (NASDAQ: CMCSK) and Vonage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: VG) have announced a collaborative agreement this morning to address "the reasonable network
management of Internet services."

Comcast committed to work together with Vonage to ensure that network management techniques are chosen that effectively balance the need to avoid network congestion with the need to ensure that over-the-top VoIP services like Vonage work well for consumers.

Keep in mind that this is more of a protocol working arrangement for open standards or "platform-neutral" rather than a contract collaboration.  It might be more of confederacy than anything solid.  Comcast has announced other collaborations with BitTorrent, Inc. and Pando Networks, as well as participation in the P4P Working Group and elsewhere.

This isn’t even helping Vonage stock today.  Shares are down 3% at $1.55 right after the open.

Jon C. Ogg
July 9, 2008