Edison, N.J.-based Web phone service Vonage puts out call for 600 new workers.

Publication: Home News Tribune (East Brunswick, New Jersey) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Home News Tribune

Byline: Ken Tarbous

Nov. 21--EDISON, N.J. -- Vonage Holdings Corp. has put out the call for help.

The Edison-based Internet-telephone company is about to double its work force by adding another 600 employees to manage explosive subscriber growth.

"We're growing very, very quickly, and we've got to hire a lot of people," Chairman and CEO Jeffrey A. Citron said in an interview at Vonage's Route 27 headquarters on Tuesday.

"Hiring those people and training and scaling up our personnel is an enormous logistical challenge." Branding itself as The Broadband Telephone Company, Vonage has the telecom world talking.

The company is fresh off a victory before the Federal Communications Commission, which ruled Internet phone service is not bound by state regulations. The company plans to take its aggressive expansion plans to the next level.

"The FCC's decision was very important for us because it allows us to make additional investments in deploying our services -- we had halted our deployments for awhile pending this decision," Citron said. "We just weren't sure if we were going to invest in new markets just to go take on and fight a state regulator."

Founded in January 2001, the privately held firm serves more than 300,000 customers in the United States and Canada, with about 80 percent residential accounts.

The 34-year-old chief executive, founder of brokerage Datek Online Holding Corp. in Iselin, is putting his golden touch on the home-grown Middlesex County firm.

"This quarter our goal is to add 100,000 customers," Citron said. "We added 82,000 customers, approximately, last quarter, and we're shooting at 100,000 this quarter." The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone-service provider is creating positions across the board in customer service, software development, engineering, training and other departments, Citron said.

More than half the company's employees work in customer service in the call-center and...

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