A federal jury found Vonage guilty of infringing on some key VoIP-related patents held by Verizon http://www.itworld.com/Net/3303/070309vonage/.  Vonage was ordered to pay Verizon $58 million in cash and a 5% royalty on future services.  Ouch!

As you would expect Vonage’s PR folks are doing their best to make the best out of a bad situation.  But, no matter how you slice it, this is seriously bad news for Vonage and the rest of the “wanna be” VOIP service providers.

The news is also a subtle, yet powerful, reminder that the future of broadband services is DEFINITELY NOT about being a low cost provider of commodity voice services.

Instead, the future of broadband is about creating innovative and simple-to-use bundles consisting of BOTH “communication-style services” (fixed and mobile voice, email, IM, etc.) and, “productivity-style applications” (web marketing, web commerce, collaboration, etc).