Vonage announced plans to cut 10% from its staff of 1,800, implement a hiring freeze, and cut $30 million in costs. Cost numero uno is advertising: Vonage said that it had spent $275 on marketing for every subscriber it had added. Vonage currently has 2.4 million customers. Buying customers at a loss is not known as a successful business model.

Snyder, a former Tyco International exec, had been brought in a few months before Vonage's disastrous IPO in May of last year. Part of the reason was that Citron had a "misunderstanding" with the SEC in the late 1990s over his tenure at the helm of Datek Online, an online stock trading company.

Vonage shares are approaching the outer rim, having dumped 80% of their value from the bad management, competition, and legal woes. After hitting an all-time low of $2.88 Monday, shares shot up a penny to $3.01 on the NYSE upon today's revelations.

Last week, the district court judge in the Verizon case wanted a stop on Vonage poaching more customers from Verizon; actually, adding new customers at all; that injunction temporarily stayed, at least until an appeals court hearing now scheduled for April 24.

Vonage is staring down the barrel of another patent suit from Sprint Nextel, but expects that to settle. Vonage's expectations in the past have not been a reliable indicator of manifest destiny.