Now That SunRocket Is Gone, What Should You Do?
Now that we can stick the fork in SunRocket, many of their customers are wondering, what should they do in order to keep their phone numbers working. There are many things you can do, but one thing you can't: sit on your butt and not do anything.
Context & Ripple Effects
SunRocket's end came in stages that GigaOM tracked over three weeks: layoff rumors surfaced at the end of June, a quarter of the staff was cut in early July, and by mid-month the company had stopped taking orders and was effectively down for the count. An internal memo announcing the demise circulated on July 16 — its authenticity unverified, but the shutdown itself is confirmed.
The immediate problem is practical, not financial: hundreds of thousands of customers face losing their phone numbers unless they act fast, and competitors are moving the same day to catch them — Vonage has already rolled out a pitch aimed squarely at SunRocket's orphaned subscriber base. The article's core warning is that doing nothing guarantees a dead line.
First-order effects
- SunRocket's former subscribers must initiate number ports to new providers immediately — the number is the asset they most risk losing, and it evaporates if the account lapses.
- Rival VoIP providers get a one-time acquisition window: Vonage's same-day outreach to SunRocket refugees shows defector-hunting is already underway.
Second-order effects
- Cable companies offering internet phone service — the competition that had already slowed SunRocket's growth by July 2007 — are positioned to absorb churn from a weakened independent-VoIP field.
- Prepaid annual-plan customers who paid upfront now face recovery questions alongside the porting scramble, raising scrutiny of how independent VoIP providers hold customer prepayments.
Third-order effects
- If standalone consumer VoIP keeps losing ground to cable bundles, voice migrates from an independent-service market to an add-on sold by broadband incumbents — with number portability the main lever keeping customers free to switch at all.
The trend: Independent consumer VoIP is consolidating toward cable and telecom incumbents, and number portability is becoming the deciding factor in whether subscribers stay loyal to anyone at all.