Vonage's Citron: Wireless Broadband Here To Stay

I have to thank Vonage and CEO Jeffrey Citron for making me look smarter than I am: Less than a week after suggesting that the Voice over IP market leader should do more deals with wireless service providers, Vonage announces a partnership with TowerStream. Now that's instant gratification for ya. "We listen to what you say," said Citron with a chuckle, in a phone interview Tuesday. In reality, Citron said Vonage and TowerStream had been working together for more than a year, and found enough synergies to move forward more formally. While this deal will focus on small business customers (TowerStream, Citron said, is mainly used as a T1 replacement or backup access method by SMBs), there's nothing to rule out more partnerships as wireless broadband becomes generally available to the unwashed masses.

"It's still very early, but other wireless broadband services are coming, and will be coming in a meaningful way," said Citron. TowerStream, he said, has good coverage in its selected markets, but "the U.S. is a big place." Does that mean we'll see more Vonage-wireless deals? Stay tuned.