Vonage launches a national grassroots communications campaign to educate and mobilize consumers about preserving the freedom to choose their phone service provider. The campaign, called "Free to Compete," will raise awareness of the importance of consumer choice.

Recently, Verizon has pursued litigation against Vonage in an effort to achieve in court what it cannot achieve in the marketplace.

"We want to highlight the choice that Vonage offers to the public: a choice to receive great phone service at a great price," said Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chairman, chief strategist and interim chief executive officer. "We think this issue warrants national attention because when competition is stifled, consumers literally pay the price. Vonage is the target today, but what other innovative companies might be next?"

Vonage estimates it may have saved consumers hundreds of millions on local and long distance service. Its digital phone service lets consumers communicate "when, where and how they choose." Vonage today has 2.4 million subscriber lines, while Verizon has just 15,000 retail VoIP customers, according to court filings.

"Vonage has always viewed healthy competition as a good thing," Citron continued. "It encourages continued innovation and provides consumers with choices and low prices. Vonage has never shied away from going head-to-head with the competition -- no matter how big and deep-pocketed -- and we will continue to fight Verizon both in the marketplace and in appeals court."

The "Free to Compete" campaign includes a series of advertisements beginning today in leading newspapers across the country, letters to Vonage's customers and a Web site - http://www.freetocompete.com - designed to educate and mobilize consumers about the importance of choice in the telecommunications industry. The Web site includes facts about the pending patent litigation, a petition to protect consumers' right to choose phone service providers and a feature allowing visitors to tell Verizon what they think about the company's tactics.