Predicted by many, VoiP provider SunRocket’s demise today was noted even by the New York Times. So far it appears that it’s every man for himself on the SunRocket Titanic, with management nowhere in sight and the company website still on autopilot.

So what do subscribers do now? It’s no surprise that at least one VoIP provider is looking to help SunRocket customers out.

“We’ve reached out to Sherwood Partners [the consultants handling the SunRocket shut down] today,” says VoicePulse CEO Ravi Sakaria. “We’re able to provide a migration path. We use a lot of the same underlying carriers as SunRocket.”

That means that many SunRocket subscribers can be up and running on VoicePulse VoIP service within 24 hours. Even before today’s dénouement, VoicePulse saw an influx of SunRocket customers, Sakaria reports.

VoicePulse offers an interesting contrast to SunRocket and one that should be of interest to VoIP industry analysts. The privately held New Jersey company has been profitable or at breakeven for the past three years, according to Sakaria.

The company’s recipe is like that of the tortoise of the well-known fable.

“The secret was to not pour a lot of money into marketing, and [aim for] slow and steady growth,” explains Sakaria. “We’ve offered unlimited calling for $24.99 a month for three years and we’ve never varied. That’s the price we needed to charge to be profitable.”

VoicePulse’s strategy has yielded about 40 percent growth year-over-year, every year, according to Sakaria.

“Four years ago when we launched the company we were seeing a 10, 20, 40 year endeavor,” continues Sakaria. “When you do that you have the mentality of how to develop a profitable enterprise and grow it from there.”

When you do this, he explains, you have the resources to reinvest in the business. For example, VoicePulse is getting ready to turn on a new, west coast POP which will deliver better redundancy for customers.

“We’ve been able to do that because of the money we generate,” he says. “Rather than struggling to stay alive, we’re able to bring customers a better calling experience.”

Not that Sakaria wouldn’t like VoicePulse to be a VoIP name brand.

“I would love for VoicePulse to be a better known brand, but not at the expense of operating at a loss. We haven’t figured out how to do that better than we are and still at a profit.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 4:09 pm and is filed under VoIP, VoIP Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.