Times are tough for Vonage right now as they struggle to gain new customers. During the second quarter of this year, Vonage only signed up 2,080 new customers compared with 56,691 from the same quarter last year. Their struggles boil down to a lack of advertising cashflow, as well as what we can imagine a tremendous competition increase.

There was a time when Vonage’s snarky commercials filled the prime time airways but that was before the company was ordered to pay $80 million to Sprint. Then throw in new competition from almost every cable provider, along with T-Mobile now too, and it’s easy to spot their troubles from a far.

Vonage has launched a new package called Vonage Pro, which enables users to place VoIP calls anywhere they have a broadband connection. Jamie Haenggo, Vonage’s chief marketing officer had this to say about the service:

“Vonage Pro is the VoIP offering that prosumers have been asking for to help them stay connected while on the go.”

Strong words from a strong man (or lady, possibly). The package comes with an updated version of Vonage Companion (Mac version coming soon), which is a SoftPhone powered by CounterPath. All you need to do to use this service is install the software, hook up a headset, and you’re ready for business. If you’re wondering, incoming calls ring on both the home phone and the SoftPhone. You can also make two different outgoing calls at the same time (one over VoIP and the other on the home phone). It also has the other expected features like personalized ring tones, call recording, and call blocking.

If this sounds like something you interested in, expect to pay $35 a month (new customers only) for their unlimited calling package. If you’re an existing customer you can upgrade to Pro for an additional $10 a month.

Comcast and Vonage have promised to never fight again and to work together to balance “network congestion” with “ensuring that over-the-top VoIP services like Vonage work well for consumers.”

Wow, does that mean Comcast is promising to stop blocking services like Vonage from running on its network? How sweet!

Vonage Chief Technology Officer Louis Mamakos said in a statement: “This agreement helps Vonage to ensure that customers have the best possible Internet experience. Although we’re competitors with Comcast, this understanding helps our two companies work together to balance the needs of network management with consumers’ ability to freely access the services, applications and content of their choice.”

Comcast also wanted you to know that this is only its “latest” in a series of announcements that “demonstrate the company’s commitment to ensure that its customers’ ability to use any application or access any content they choose while avoiding network congestion situations that could affect the consumer experience.”

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A couple of weeks ago, we reported that Sprint ordered Vonage to cough up almost $70 million plus 5 percent of future revenue for patent infringement damages. Today the fiasco has been settled for $80 million, straight up and Sprint has agreed to license Vonage some of its VOIP technology in return.

For a company like Vonage that’s been hemmoraging money due to legal misunderstandings, it’s a positive sign that after settling with Sprint, its stock went up 74% to $2. That’s still far less than Vonage’s IPO price of $17 per share. Sprint’s stock went down 1.5% to settle at $18.73 per share.

Sprint and Vonage settle patent dispute [Reuters]

That’s gonna leave a mark. Apparently Vonage infringed upon six of Sprint Nextel’s patents, which is a big, expensive no-no. Sprint will receive $69.5 million plus 5 percent of Vonage’s future revenue.

Earlier this year, Vonage lost a cool $58 million, plus 5.5% future royalties to Verizon. That now seems somewhat tame. All told, that brings the grand total to $127.5 million plus 10.5% of all future revenue that Vonage is going to have to dish out. Guess who might be picking up some or all of that bill? Vonage customers.

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