I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve only tangentially been paying attention to the lawsuit Vonage is involved in with Verizon — I knew that Vonage was found to have violated a few Verizon patents, but I had no clue that my home phone company might be forced to shut down its service this coming Friday! Apparently, in an effort to avoid a court-ordered shutdown, Vonage struck a deal with VoIP Inc. today to carry all its calls on VoIP’s network, a move that both companies claim routes around at least two of the technologies that Verizon has patented. But in the end, we still have a phone company that is a quarter of a million dollars in debt, now owes Verizon over $50 million for the use of its patents, and is churning through subscribers at increasing rates. So even if Vonage makes it through Friday — hell, even if the company makes it through the next few months — I’m not naive enough to think that I don’t need to be doing any research on who our next phone provider will be. Anyone have any suggestions?

Update: Clint Ricker has a bit more about the patents involved in the dispute over at IPUrbia.